A Long Time Ago
by Sarah the nerd
Summary: Years after the fall of the Empire, an ordinary girl living on an ordinary planet sets out to do a decidedly extraordinary school project.
1. Just Another Beginning

A Long Time Ago   
_1. Just Another Beginning_   


_No!_

_No no no no no! NOT supposed to happen! Not supposed to happen, you stupid little girl!_

Cursing herself, she ran around the corner and down the corridor, almost knocking over a blue Twi'lek male...probably one of the new teachers. She yelled "Sorry!" behind her, and kept running. _Regimesh will be furious_. "_Always _late, Miss Vari," he'd say, in that accent she used to find so hilarious. "But even _I _had dared to hope you'd have turned over a new leaf over the holiday..." 

_Run run run run run! Come on! Stupid Nerra. He said he'd wake you up so you wouldn't be late and he DIDN'T and you shouldn't have trusted him you stupid..._

She almost shot right past the classroom. She had to stop and turn around again. The once-familiar door was now painted red...they must have done that over the holiday. 

She knocked. 

"Enter," two voices called. 

She entered. Two seats were in the centre of the room...on one of them sat Kirris Leleny, High Mistress of something-or-other, the one who'd arranged the meeting...and on the other sat the much-feared (and mostly much-hated) Middle Master of History, J. Regimesh. 

"Take a seat," Kirris annouced. She hit a button next to her and a chair detached itself from the wall and made its way to her. She sat down. 

"So, Tass..." Kirris began, in a trying-to-be-friendly tone of voice..."Master Regimesh called me to arrange a meeting. Apparently you've been working at a below-average level in History?" 

_And Planetary Cultures, and Language Studies, and..._"Yes, High Mistress," she said. 

"Can you give me a reason?" 

"No, High Mistress." 

"Very well," She looked over at the History Master. "We've discussed this. We want to see you pass your final exams, Tass. You're intelligent enough..." _Oh really._ "...and so we've decided to give you one last chance." 

She hadn't been expecting that. "What is it?" 

"A History project," Regimesh announced. "Pick a subject, research it, and present a well-written and fully illustrated project on it by the end of term." He glared at her. "Personally, I think we're letting you off _far _too easily." 

Tass didn't care. She nodded. _More History...damn._

"So, Tass...will you do that?" Kirris continued. 

"Yes, High Mistress." 

"Good. I expect you to start work on it straight away...understand?" Tass nodded again. "Right. You may go. Bear in mind...if the project isn't up to scratch, you forfeit...well, you forfeit your _future_, really, Tass." 

Tass hurried for the door. She noticed Regimesh shoot her an extremely disapproving look as she left. Not for the first time she wondered what his problem was. _Oh well...maybe it's just something you pick up when you're the only Gungan teacher in the whole school._

***** 

"No _way_," Dekabyn said. "You're not_ that _bad." 

Tass played with her hair. They were sitting in her favourite spot...the small metal bench on the highest balcony, where you could look out over Coruscant. It didn't make her feel any less depressed, though. "I _am _that bad," she said. "Below Average in _everything_." 

"Not Art." 

"I wasn't counting that." 

"So there's one thing you're good at. And I expect History won't be too difficult once you get the hang of it...honestly, what're they on about, _forfeit your future_?" 

"I dunno. Not going to ask, either." She rested her head on her hand. "Anyway, all this is easy for you to say, you're so smart and I'm so dumb." 

"You're not dumb." 

"Don't try to be nice." 

"Suit yourself, I won't." 

Tass sighed. She looked out over the buildings. It was a view she was used to...but she was starting to get sick of it. 

"I can't take another year of Regimesh," she muttered. 

"You're not the only one. I want to get out of here...don't you?" 

"I don't have anywhere to go." 

"Same here." 

The buzzer sounded, echoing around the air. Dekabyn stood up. "See you around," he said, and walked away. Tass stared blankly out at the buildings for a few seconds. Then she picked up her datapads from the floor, and walked away as well. 


	2. Differences

A Long Time Ago   
_2. Differences_   


Tass liked her house, in a strange kind of way. It was small (although not as small as some of the other houses) and on the forty-second level down, but it was cosy, in a way. All done in blue and red. Her mother liked red, her father liked blue, so the result was a mismatched house. 

She pushed the button on the door, it read her handprint and let her in. 

"Anyone here?" 

Nerra, her brother, came out of the living room. He looked at her, saw who it was, and went back in again. Tass followed him. He was sitting slumped on the sofa, a look of extreme annoyance on his face. 

Lelleri, Tass's mother, was sitting on a chair and reading a holopad. 

"Don't mind him, Tass," she said, not looking up. "Mayalri's gone." 

"Mayalri?" Tass remembered her...vaguely. A pretty girl from Naboo. "What d'ya mean...gone where?" 

"Left him," Lelleri said, keeping her voice low. But Nerra got up and left the room anyway. Lelleri sighed. 

"Why's she left him?" 

"Who knows? He's not saying a word. Could be anything." Tass heard Nerra going up the stairs. "Maybe you could talk to him." 

"He won't tell _me _anything." 

"Well, anyway....be nice to him when he comes back down. He really liked her, you know." 

Tass hadn't know. She sat down on the sofa, and switched on the holovision. 

"Anything to avoid homework, I suppose." Lelleri said sarcastically. 

***** 

Dinner that evening was somewhat quiet. Nerra wasn't saying anything. Tass was started to get annoyed at him. 

"I've got to do a project," she finally said, during a particularly long silence. "For History. They won't let me take my exams otherwise." 

Tass's father, Jek, stared at her. 

"You didn't tell us this before," he said. 

"I only found out today." 

"You don't get entered for the exams otherwise?" Lelleri said worriedly. "Tass, this is really serious." 

"I know, I know...I promise to do a good job." 

"Then get started after dinner," Jek said gravely. "No going out with Dekabyn...go to your room and do some research. Nerra, have you got any holopads she can borrow?" 

Nerra looked up sullenly. "There's some books." 

"Books?" Lelleri said. "My. I thought we threw those out ages ago." She looked at Jek, who shook his head. 

"There's some stuff about History in there," he said. "The Empire and things." 

"That'd be useful," Tass said, giving an internal groan. The Empire had sounded fascinating at first, but a few hours in Regimesh's class, with him filling her in on all the boring details concerning politics and the disolution of the Senate, had soon changed her opinion. 

"It goes up to the Emperor's death," Nerra said. "You'll have to look up what happened after that on holopads and stuff," 

Then, since he'd finished, he left the table and Tass heard the front door slam. Tass thought back on what she'd learned about the Emperor's death. All she could remember was that his apprentice, Vader, had killed him, because of something to do with his son. Hadn't the Emperor nearly killed him? Regimesh hadn't gone through it in much detail. It had all seemed just weird to her, anyway. If it hadn't been the no-nonsense History teacher who'd told her, she would have doubted it'd actually happened. 

Oh well. 

"I'll go find the book," she said, and put her plate away. She went up to Nerra's room, and looked around for it. She found it buried underneath some hologames. She retreated to her own room, brushed the dust off the cover and looked at the title. 

_The Greatest War Of The Stars, by Various Authors._

"Nice title." 

She dropped it in her schoolbag and left. 

***** 

She managed to sneak out and meet Dekabyn anyway. Her parents were in the living room, having a Serious Discussion. They had one every now and then. 

She closed the front door quietly, but it made a beeping noise anyway. No-one seemed to notice, however. She crossed the walkway and went to the railing. She glanced down a few levels, trying to see if Dekabyn was there. 

He was there, looking up. He grinned and vanished. 

Tass turned around, leaned against the railing and waited for him. People walked past her, heading for their own houses. None of them paid any attention to her. She moved down the walkway, away from her house, in case her mother looked out of the window and sent her in to do more work. 

Dekabyn came up the metal stairway to her left. "Hi," he said, and went to her. He was carrying a holopad under one arm. 

"Poetry," he muttered. "Have to read it for Interplanetery Literature. You're lucky you're not in that class."

Tass nodded. She loathed poetry. 

"Worked on your project?"

"Nope. I borrowed a book from Nerra but that's about it." 

Dekabyn looked impressed. "Wow, you have _books_? I've only seen them at archives..." 

"We have lots of old stuff, remember? Like the old speeder..." 

"Did it start working again?" 

"Afraid not." 

"Pity. I'd've liked to try it..." 

They looked out together at Coruscant. The sun was setting. Tass looked down, all the way down, as she liked to. You couldn't be afraid of heights on Coruscant, after all. It looked like lava at the bottom, although Tass knew it wasn't. 

"I wonder..." 

"What?" 

"If anything will ever grow here." 

"I doubt it." Dekabyn pulled himself up to sit on the railing, his back to the oblivion down there. Tass wished he wouldn't. "Still...they're certainly putting a lot of effort into it. Too _much _effort. I can hear them working all through the night." 

"My dad says nothing will grow here. And he says it was mad of them to choose the residential areas to knock down first." 

"Well, they only knocked down the oldest buildings...but yeah, you're right. My mum told me the other day that our block was lucky to escape...gave me a shock. We'd have had nowhere to go." 

Tass nodded, not sure what to answer to that. "If they _do _actually manage to make a park here, though...I'd love to visit it." 

"Yeah..."

He wobbled slightly on the railing. "The holovision says that if this one is a success, they'll start building one on the East side as well. More than one, in fact. It's a really big thing, y'know. Everyone's on about it." 

"Except us." 

"Yeah, I guess." 

He finally got down off the railings. Tass remembered something. 

"I'm going to see Faith tomorrow." 

Dekabyn looked incredulous. "What, the high-and-mighty princess has decided to grace her loyal subject with an audience?" 

"Don't be like that, Dek, she's really nice." 

"Well, she seems like a snob to me. She hangs around with the Rinakels, she's always going on about how much money her daddy has, she lives up on the ninth level...and she never comes to visit _you_." 

"Where someone lives doesn't determine their personality, though." Tass argued. "It's just stereotyping. If the stereotypes were true, you and I would both be undereducated criminals." 

"Yeah, I know, okay," Dekabyn said, sounding a little ashamed. "But let's face it...there's a big difference between ninth level and forty-second. Or forty-fifth, in my case." 

_Exactly the problem, Dek...___

"Yeah, you're right." 

She nodded, and looked along the walkway to her house. "Mum and Dad will miss me in a minute or two," she said. "I'd better get back."

"Okay," he said, and he watched her as she left. 


	3. Friends In High Places

A Long Time Ago   
_3. Friends In High Places_   


_She was in a sea of green, surrounded by flowers, and no buildings whatsoever. She could have been on Naboo, not Coruscant. It was all so pretty! And there were lots of people there...faces she knew, people who she'd seen on the holovision and things. Perhaps that attractive actor from Yavin was here...who knew?_

"Tass!" 

_Hey!_

"Tass! Would you please wake up! Regimesh's coming!" 

Tass's head shot up from the desk. A few people looked in her direction and she felt herself going red. _I hate it when that happens!_

"You fall asleep _anywhere_, y'know." Dekabyn sounded impressed. "We should hire you out for scientific research or something..." 

"It's not funny! It's annoying," she growled. "Good thing you woke me up." 

Regimesh walked in. The class fell into silence. Regimesh looked around the room, and gave a smile, the Gunganish smile that had Tass bursting into laughter a year or so ago.   
  
"Well done. Perhaps your manners are improving." 

He stood at the front of the class, and pushed a button on the wall. The lesson for today appeared on the screen. Tass had the urge to fall asleep again. 

  
  
After class...and no sleep...Tass was heading for the door when Regimesh stepped in front of her. 

"Started your project work yet, Miss Vari?" 

She blushed. "Erm...no. No, sir." 

He stared. "Well, I suggest you get on with it, then. Try the library." 

Tass nodded urgently and left. 

Dekabyn eventually convinced her to go to the library. 

"Honestly...you can't keep putting it off. Before you know it he'll ask you again, and you'll still have nothing to say." 

Tass sat at a table, doodling on her holopad with the sensorpen. She drew Dekabyn. He looked alright, but she wasn't good at drawing arms. She'd have to work on that... 

Dekabyn appraoched the table, carrying a pile of holopads in his arms. Tass looked up guiltily. "Oops. I could have done that." 

"Never mind." He sat down and pulled Tass's holopad towards him. "Nice. Is that me?" 

Tass blushed and pulled it back towards her. "What holopads did you get?" 

"This one...it has some stories about Darth Vader," he said, pointing at it. "And the others are to do with the Rebellion and Alderaan." 

"Thanks," Tass said. "Where should I start?" 

Dekabyn shrugged. Tass picked up the Darth Vader one. 

"_Once known as Anakin Skywalker, hero of the Clone Wars..._" She glanced at Dekabyn. "Well, I knew that." 

"So did I. Keep reading...you have to know _all_ this stuff, you know." 

"_He was taken to the Jedi at the age of nine, taken from a slave's life and his mother on Tatooine. After Qui-Gon Jinn, the man who found him, was murdered on Naboo by the Sith lord Maul (see page 360) Skywalker was assigned to Jinn's Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kenobi agreed to this only out of respect for his Master, but soon it seemed he did come to care about the boy. However, he was powerless to stop young Skywalker from walking down the path to tyranny and murder. In their final duel (see page 425) he was forced to send the young man to what was meant to be his death..._" 

Tass paused. "Well, that's something I _didn't_ know." 

"You ought to know." Dekabyn intoned. "We did it last year. I think you were asleep." 

"Must have been," Tass said. She flipped forward a few pages and started to read again. 

"_Anakin Skywalker returned to Tatooine only once. It is said he came with the woman who would become his wife, Padmé Amidala Naberrie. Here, Skywalker discovered his mother had been freed from slavery, but had been captured by Tusken Raiders. Plenty of theories have been offered as to why, but no-one can be sure of the truth. However, it is known that when Skywalker found his mother dead, after days of searching, he slaughtered all the Tuskens on Tatooine. The act of genocide marked his decent towards the darkside..._"__

Tass stopped. "Oh. I didn't know that, either." 

"Me neither," Dekabyn said, frowning. Then he shrugged. "Well, it makes sense I suppose, but I didn't know he killed _all _of them." 

The buzzer sounded. 

"Droidology time." Dekabyn said drily. "I'll see you later." 

"Bye," Tass said, and stuffed her holopads into her bag. 

After school finished, Tass took an airtaxi to Faith's home. Ninth level. Higher and higher and higher...then she reached it. She stepped off the taxi and looked down. You just didn't feel dizzy if you were on Corscant, but she rarely went up this high. 

Faith's house consisted of the apartment, a hydropit, and an hangar. It was gigantic. Tass was wondering where Faith was, when suddenly she ran out of the hangar. 

Faith Mélenion always looked pretty, but she seemed to have made a special effort today. Her dark hair was done up in an elaborate style, and she was wearing a shimmering pink and silver dress. Tass realised why in half a second: two other people ran out of the hangar behind her. Mystiria and Zarrielli Rinakel. Brother and sister. They looked at her then looked at Faith, wearing 'you know this scum?' expressions. 

"Yes...Tass, the Rinakels came over, too." Faith said. "You don't mind, do you?" 

"No...of course not," she lied through her teeth. The Rinakels lived on the third level. Ninth-level people were about the lowest they cared to associate with. They were decended from royality, apparently, and staggeringly rich. 

"D'ya know why I asked you round?" Faith asked suddenly, a wide grin on her face. Tass shook her head. "Because my parents got the _Merlin _fixed!" She pointed towards the hangar. "It'll fly now!" 

Tass made no effort to hide her surprise. The _Merlin _, the Mélenion's ship, was ancient. It should have disintergrated years ago. "Honestly? It'll fly?" 

"Apparently. I'm not allowed to try it." 

Tass noticed that the Rinakels were whispering to each other and giggling. 

"Well, that's probably a good thing..." 

Mystiria Rinakel hurried over to them and put her arm around Faith. 

"Hey...me and Zarrielli had an idea. What about a game of dares?" She winked. Tass groaned inwardly. 

"Well, alright," Faith said, clearly not getting it. "Why not?" 

"Good," Mystiria said. Her eyes glittered. "I'll think of a number. Whoever guesses closest to the number has to do the dare. You too, Zarri," she added. "Go on." 

"Eleven," Faith said.   
"Ninety-two," Zarrielli said.   
Tass sighed. "One hundred." 

"You got it right, Tass!" Mystiria yelled. Faith opened her mouth but then closed it. "Now you have to do what we tell you." 

Tass sighed again. "All right. What?" 

Mystiria grabbed Faith and joined her brother in a circle-huddle. Tass overheard Zarrielli say "Nah, she's too thick to fall for that." She wondered if she ought to give up and go home. 

Faith suddenly broke away from the circle, and then the Rinakels, smirking, appraoched Tass. 

"We want you to fly the _Merlin_." Zarrielli said. 

Faith looked horrified: evidently they hadn't let her in on that. 

"Wait," she said, but Mystiria cut her off. 

"Not _fly _it fly it," she said. "Just lift it off the ground." 

Tass shook her head. "No." 

"Why not?" 

"Because I don't want to. Besides, I might break something." 

"You _have _to. It's a game. You're supposed to..." 

Faith cleared her throat. "She doesn't want to, alright? So I'll take her place. I'll have a go at flying it." 

All of them looked at her. 

"You're not allowed..." Zarrielli began, but his sister cut him off. 

"Yeah...go on," she said gleefully. 

They went into the hangar. The _Merlin _sat there, looking completely and utterly unflyable. Tass shook her head. "Faith, this isn't a good idea, you know." 

Faith looked at her. "Well, you want them to leave _you _alone, don't you? Besides, I'd quite like to have a go at flying it." 

Tass didn't know what to say to that. Mystiria opened the door for her and Faith stepped into the cockpit. 

"You know how everything works, right?" Mystiria called. 

Faith indicated that she did. 

"Whenever you're ready, then." She grinned nastily and stepped back. 

Tass watched. Though the screen she saw Faith push some buttons. The engines came on. She pushed some levers and hit some more buttons, and the _Merlin _started to rise... 

And rise... 

And fall. 

With a horrible loud crunching noise and a lot of smoke. 

"Faith!" Tass yelled urgently. The smoke was black. She raced to the ship and flung the door open. Faith practically fell out. All four waited with baited breath, but nothing exploded. 

Faith spoke first. "Something happened. Something went wrong. I don't know what I did...and my parents are going to kill me." 

Before anyone could answer, Mr and Mrs Mélenion hurried in, as if Faith's words had been their cue. 

"What is going on here?" 

There was silence, then Mystiria prodded Tass in the back. 

"Well, we dared Tass to fly the _Merlin_," she said sadly. "And she did. Now look what she's done." 

Mrs Mélenion pursed her lips. 

"Right. Go home, Tass." 

Tass glanced at Faith and got no support. 

"Go!" she repeated, more sharply. 

Tass went. 


	4. Of Stupid Things

A Long Time Ago   
_4. Of Stupid Things_   


On the way to school the next day, Tass filled Dekabyn in on what happened. He looked outraged. 

"That's not fair! They got you into trouble! Tass, you ought to go see Faith's parents and tell them what happened. And then smack the Rinakels hard." 

"No point," Tass said. "They'll just devise a way to make my life miserable if I say anything." 

"But it's just not...argghhh." Dekabyn trailed off. "Who gave them the right to do things like that?"  
  
Tass shrugged unhappily. 

"And what about..." 

"Tass! Tass, wait a minute!" 

Both Tass and Dekabyn turned to see Faith rushing across the platform to them, having just gotten off an airtaxi. She was wearing expensive jewellery, and a beautiful white dress that looked stunning against her dark skin. Dekabyn, however, didn't look impressed. 

"What do you want?" he asked her. 

"I came to apologize," she said, looking at both of them. "I'm really sorry, Tass, I know what the Rinakels are like and I should have said something...I'm really sorry." 

"It's alright, Faith. Thanks." Had she been expecting that apology or not? "It's okay." 

"I shouldn't invite them over again," she said, falling into step with them as they kept walking. "They're not nice. But Mum thinks people like that make good friends, and...well, you know what she's like..." 

Tass didn't really, and she didn't suppose she wanted to. She nodded. 

"I told her it was me who tried to fly the ship," Faith added nervously. "She was livid. She says I have to pay for it and everything." 

"Oh..." 

"I will. I have enough money..." Dekabyn gave a snort; Faith chose to ignore it. "Tass..." 

"What?" 

"I don't know why the ship went wrong like that. I think it happened because I was nervous...I can't work out why." She looked uncomfortable. "Any ideas?" 

"None. Sorry, Faith." 

They reached the glowing blue building that was the school. Faith spotted a smartly dressed Rodian girl waiting by the enterance. 

"Reelia's over there...mind if I go talk to her?" she asked apologetically. She hurried off, calling over her shoulder "Won't be a minute..." 

Dekabyn sighed. "Come on, let's leave her." 

"Dek!" 

"She'd rather hang out with her own kind..." 

Tass sighed herself, and followed Dekabyn. She would have to talk to him at some point. 

There was no History that day. Lunchtime came quickly, and Tass and Dekabyn wound up in the library once more. 

"I've got this," Tass said, and pulled the book Nerra gave her out of her bag. 

"You shouldn't bring that to school!" Dekabyn said. "Someone'll steal it. Those things are expensive! And that one looks quite old." 

"It's not. It used to be Nerra's, he must have read it quite a few times." She opened it to a random page. She expected to see pages and pages of hard-to-read words, but instead...there were drawings. 

"Wow." Tass breathed. She ran her fingers over them. A girl was staring out at her, her eyes slightly defiant, or maybe even just annoyed. On the opposite side a man clutching a blaster looked out. There was the shape of a Wookiee behind him, but it looked like the drawing hadn't been finished. 

"Who are those two?" she said. 

Dekabyn pointed to the bottom of the right hand page. "Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, and Han Solo, her future husband," he read. "Interesting. They were in the Rebellion, weren't they?" 

Tass could remember only bits of this. "Yeah...I think they were." She leafed over the page, looking for more drawings. 

"I'll get you some holopads," Dekabyn said, and he walked off before Tass could stop him. She looked at these new pictures. Whoever drew them had been very good. On one page there was another girl, her hair done up in a style even more elaborate than anything Faith could come up with. She was smiling. On the other page there was a teenage boy. Well, maybe a little older than teenage...she wouldn't know. He was smiling too. She had a feeling she knew who he was. There were things written under the picture, a paragraph or two. She started to read. 

Dekabyn returned with one holopad. "This talks about most of the political stuff. I know you hate it, but Regimesh'll be impressed if you go into it in depth." 

Tass sighed. "Okay," Then she added. "Thanks for helping, Dek. Really thanks." 

Dekabyn smiled at her and sat down. "Find out anything life-altering?" he asked. 

"Dunno. This is just background information about Anakin Skywalker." She tapped the page with the drawing on. "He's kinda cute, isn't he?" 

She expected Dekabyn to roll his eyes, but he didn't. "He wiped out a whole _civilisation_, Tass...and all you can say is 'He's kinda cute'?" He looked aghast. 

"I wasn't drooling over him or anything...it was just an observation." She looked at the picture. He looked a bit unhappy behind the smile he was wearing. She suddenly wanted to draw him herself. "Besides, he _didn't_ wipe out a whole civilisation. This book says...'While undoubtedly Lord Vader commited a number of atrocious crimes against the galaxy, eliminating the Sand People in revenge was not one of them. It is true there are very few of them around today, but this is a more recent development...'" She trailed off. "See? He just killed one camp of them, it says...and they _had_ just murdered his mother. They couldn't really expect to get away with that. So I guess maybe it wasn't so bad..." 

"Honestly, Tass! 'Oh, it's just one camp, that's all right...' There were probably kids there, and babies! They didn't do anything." 

"I don't mean it like that." She felt oddly guilty. "Of course no-one ought to kill anyone. But..." 

"But what?" 

"Actually, I can't think of a _but_. But he didn't commit genocide, that we do know." 

"Well, genocide or not, it was stupid of him." 

"I _know_ it was stupid of him. As in really, really stupid, and pretty much evil if there were kids." She glanced at the picture of the smiling young man again. "It's just...well, you know...if you'd been looking for your mother and as soon as you found her she died and the people who'd killed her were just hanging around outside and you had a weapon...well, what would you do?" 

"What makes you think I'd even go looking for my mum?" Dekabyn said. Tass stared. 

"What do you _mean_? How can you say that? You...oh..." She trailed off. "Did you have another fight?" 

Dekabyn looked down at the ground. "It was nothing to do with me...the unreasonable, _pathetic_..." 

"Dek!" 

"Sorry." 

"What _is_ it with you and your mum? I mean..." 

"Drop it, Tass!" 

"It's just.." 

"Drop it!" 

They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. Then Tass turned her back to him and resumed her note-taking. 

"Sorry, Tass," she heard Dekabyn say. "I didn't mean to yell." 

"All right." 

"Honest." 

"I _said_ all right. It's just, Dekabyn...it's just you ought to start appreciating what you have." 

He opened his mouth, closed it again, looked from her to the floor and to her again. "Well, maybe." Then, "Wise words, Tass...you ought to be a writer or something." 

Tass beamed, and then the smile slid off her face. Regimesh had stepped into view behind Dekabyn. He looked half impressed, and half annoyed. It was quite an interesting expression, especially for a Gungan. 

"A good argument, the both of you." he said. "But next time you wish to have a debate such as that, I suggest you get a show on the commwave, and not yell in my library." 

Both Tass and Dekabyn nodded. "Yes, sir." Regimesh strode away. Tass rolled her eyes. "It's not exactly _his_ library. He acts like he owns the place sometime." 

"Well," Dekabyn said, a lot more nervously than usual, as if afraid he'd hurt her feelings again, "it is a bit hard to get a really good job if you're a Gungan." 

Tass hadn't known that. "Seriously? Why?" 

"Who knows? I suppose us intolerant humans aren't used to them - although heaven knows we've had enough time to. There's just some sort of...thing...which says humans think Gungans are all stupid so therefore they must be. Y'know?" 

"I've never heard about that before," Tass said, ashamed. 

"I suppose a lot of people haven't. So yeah, there's not many Gungan teachers about. And not all Gungans talk like Regimesh does, you know." 

"Yeah, I knew_ that_. They sort of sound..." 

"...like they don't have a very good grasp on Basic." Dekabyn finished. "I suppose that's why some people don't like them much...maybe they think the Gungans think they're all too good to learn the language properly." 

Tass nodded. She thought back to everything she'd learnt about Naboo, where Gungans orginated. Not much. "So Regimesh sort of taught himself to act like humans do, or something?" she said. 

"I suppose so." He shook his head. "I didn't really know...it was just on the news yesterday about how there's just one or two Gungans in high-up positions on Coruscant...anyway." He looked at her. "Maybe he's not a very nice person, but he must've worked pretty hard to get here." 

Tass nodded. As she put her fingers back on the holopad buttons, she silently vowed to be nicer to Regimesh in the future. 


	5. A Miniature War

HZEA=Holographic Zoo for Extinct Animals. I love my AOTC companion. ;) 

A Long Time Ago   
_5. A Miniature War_   


Almost a week later, Tass had almost forgotten that particular vow. All the students were being bombarded with homework, and Regimesh didn't care that she had an important project to fit into her busy schedule. She had no time to herself whatsoever. Neither did Dekabyn, but he didn't seem to mind. 

"How are you getting on?" he asked her as they walked through the morning crowds to school. 

"Alright, I suppose," she said. "I've covered the Sith Lords. Maul, Tyranus, Sidious, Vader. And most of the important Jedi." 

"Have you done the beginning of the Clone Wars? There was a programme on the holo last night..." 

"There was? I missed it." She sighed. "But yeah. Done it. Tyranus was the one who was once a Jedi, right?" 

"Right." 

"Yoda's Padawan, Jinn's Master?" 

"I think so. Can't remember. Probably." 

"That's quite interesting then," she said thoughtfully. "Jinn was the one who freed Anakin Skywalker. Maybe he knew..." 

"Knew what? About the Jedi Purges?" 

"Yeah...maybe his Master put ideas in his head...maybe they both wanted the Jedi destroyed." 

Dekabyn tilted his head to one side. "Well, you never know," he said. "It could've, I suppose. Jinn seemed like an alright person, though...I mean, he was the one who kept going against the Council, wasn't he?" 

"Yeah, he did," Tass said, remembering. "Why, d'ya think it was good that he did that?" 

Dekabyn nodded. "The old Jedi were corrupt. Anyone could see that." 

"You think it's a good thing they all died?" 

They stood in a crowd of people, waiting for the bridge to lower and provide a way across the airlane. 

"Well, no..." 

But he evidently couldn't think of anything to say after that. The two of them started talking about other things, like holovids and the reconstruction work on Coruscant, and they didn't stop until they got to school. 

At lunchtime, Tass studied on her own while Dekabyn went to the school shop to buy some things he needed in order to finish all the work he had to do. It hardly seemed fair...Dekabyn didn't have enough money anyway, and shouldn't the school provide everything they needed? Maybe Dekabyn and her brother and everyone else who'd said so were right...the school _was _designed to cater to Coruscant's elite. 

She'd found another holopad...'The Life Of Luke Skywalker'. It was proving to be interesting. Very interesting. Like the stories she'd read when she was little... 

_What really happened in the throne room on the Death Star no-one we ever be completely sure, but there is no reason to think Skywalker would lie. He told many people in the course of his life: when Vader threatened his sister, he attacked him, then stopped when he realised he could never kill his father. He threw away his weapon, and prepared for death. The Emperor unleashed his powers on the young Skywalker, but he lived for one reason: his father, who he'd never known as anything more than a Sith Lord, picked up the Emperor and threw him down the Death Star's reactor shaft. But the effort killed him...and more than that Skywalker never said, except perhaps to his sister and closest friends..._

All the stories she'd read had had heroes in them, but this, for some reason, was affecting her more than the stories. There was something in this that none of her favourite authors had managed to tell her, but she couldn't work out what... 

Someone came and slid into the seat next to her. She looked up. It was Faith. 

"Tass," she whispered. "I thought I could talk to you..." 

"What?" Tass asked urgently. 

"Well...you know I said about the ship crashing because I made it crash by being nervous? Or whatever I said?" 

Tass nodded. 

"Well...weird things keep happening. Yesterday I was fighting with my mother...and I went to my room and slammed the door, and I just sort of glared around, and..." She shook her head. "The holovision sort of lifted up, and so did a few other things, and then they crashed down again and left a mess. And I think that was me too..." 

Tass thought about this. Only one idea was half-formed in her mind, but she didn't know how Faith would take it... 

But she was spared having to say it, because the Rinakels walked in. Faith looked at them, looked at Tass, whispered. "Better go, see you later!" And she went to join them, a wide smile on her face. 

Tass shook her head and went back to the book. Ought she to tell Dekabyn about all this? But he didn't like Faith, and might tell her parents something...oh, alright, he wouldn't _really _do that, not if she didn't want him to, but the less people she told the less chance it had of getting back to the Mélenions. What would Faith's parents say if they thought their daughter might have some Force powers in her? Because she knew about them, she knew -and so did everyone else really- that in generations past they'd been big supporters of the Empire, helped fund the Death Star, been good friends with the Tarkin family... 

...and had fully condoned the Jedi Purge. 

She'd keep it quiet. Maybe the Force in Faith would just go away, if she stopped using it. 

Dekabyn came in, looking slightly annoyed. 

"Well, that's less lunch for me," he said, slumping into the chair that Faith had previously occupied. "They charge you a fortune. For the things we ought to have anyway! I hate this place sometimes." 

Tass nodded. "I know. Here, I'll lend you some credits." She reached about in her pockets...there wasn't much in there really. She fished out about half of it. 

Dekabyn shook his head. "I'm not taking your money. No way." 

"Take it or else." When he still shook his head she went on. "Use it to buy _both _of us lunch, then." 

Dekabyn still looked uncertain, but then he nodded. "Well...okay. Shall we go to lunch now then?" 

Tass placed the Skywalker holopad in the tray on the table. It vanished, and reappeared on the shelf. "Yeah, okay. I'm finished." 

They got up and started to walk away. Tass thought of something she could talk about. 

"Hey Dekabyn, you've heard of Luke Skywalker, right?" 

"'Course I've heard of him. Honestly. _Everyone_'s heard of Luke Skywalker." 

"I like him," Tass said, with a smile. She'd worked out what she'd thought about him. "He...well, y'know how mostly wars are won because of strength, power, all that stuff?" 

Dekabyn nodded. 

"He didn't. It was like the biggest war ever...we might not be here if they'd all lost...and he won. And not because of power or whatever...just because he loved someone." 

Dekabyn shrugged. Tass felt rather let down. 

"Makes you wonder _why_ he loved him, though," he said finally. "_I _wouldn't love someone who'd killed my friends." 

Tass considered this. "I suppose most people wouldn't. Maybe he was different." 

"Maybe," Dekabyn said warily. 

They wandered through the corridors and into the cafe. 

"Y'know, Tass...if someone'd told me a few months ago that shortly you'd be talking about nothing but History, I'd have been laughing." 

"Well, yeah," She felt a bit worried suddenly...she hadn't annoyed everyone with her jabbering, had she? 

"I suppose we get a different subject every so often." Dekabyn said with a quick smile. "Like that time last year when you just went on and on about that band. Or when everyone was into nature all of a sudden, just because they'd announced they were starting work on the parks." 

Tass nodded, grinning slightly. "Yeah. But even I dunno why I've been talking about History so much." She wondered whether to change the subject. "It doesn't really seem like History anymore, you know? Anyway...d'ya want to go somewhere later? My parents probably won't mind. How about the HZEA?" 

Dekabyn drummed his fingers on the table. "I dunno...how about the hydrostadium? Or the theatre or something. The HZEA's too expensive." 

"Oh," Tass felt herself redden a little. "Well, I don't mind. We don't even have to go anywhere, we could just wander around." 

"Well, whatever you want, Tass." He smiled. "I'll get the food, then. Want the usual?" 

"Yes please." 

He went to join the queue for food. Tass found herself looking around the room. Human kids, Twi'lek kids, Calamari kids, Cerean kids, Torgruta kids. Eleventh level kids, twentieth level kids, fifty-seventh level kids. Rich kids. Poor kids. 

_I am in a strange mood..._

Reading, though, about the...well, the Final Battle, as was the term used to describe the climax of a book in Interplanetery Literature...had affected her somewhat, though, and she didn't know why. It just seemed like...if lots of people had died for this galaxy,_ their_ galaxy, it seemed wrong beyond all reason to just screw it up again. 

_Yeah, but that's the way of things. Things go wrong, things get put right, things go wrong again. Circles, balance, y'know? Besides, the galaxy's going wrong already. Been wrong for ages. There's that war on Neimodia, been going since before you were born, still not finished..._

She watched Dekabyn. Something suddenly occured to her. 

_Dek never knew who his father was...did he? Just like Luke. And I suppose Dek's thinking that whoever he was, he's not likely to be a tragic fallen Jedi who he can redeem..._

Dekabyn gathered up the food for her in his arms, and turned to go back to the table. The light caught his hair. And suddenly, he looked like all the heroes she'd ever read about or dreamed of. 

Which was _so_ strange. 

Lunch that night, back at Tass's house, was subdued. Nerra, too, had suffered from too much homework and the school shop's prices, and he was as unhappy about it as Dekabyn, if not more so. 

"It's not fair," he muttered at the dinner table. "They don't want kids like us in their school. The type without money." 

"That's not true, Nerra-" Jek began, but Nerra cut him off. 

"It _is _true. You know it is. You know that they didn't used to let anyone below twentieth level attend that school. Or any of the schools around here..." 

"Times have changed now, Nerra," Lelleri said with a sigh. "Things could be a lot worse for us. A lot, lot worse. Be thankful for what you've got." 

Tass agreed with this wholeheartedly, but Nerra didn't seem to want to let it go. 

"You don't know what it's like, though. The teachers are always so nice to us, like we're all stupid and need more help...and the other kids...they don't want us here, I used to know someone who held his nose every time I walked past." 

"Who?" Tass asked. 

"Zarrielli Rinakel." 

"Oh. I know him. Sort of." 

"Stupid zit. Stupid name, too..." 

"That's enough, Nerra," Lelleri said with a sigh. "Just hold your head up high and ignore it. You're worth ten of them, and you know it." 

Nerra nodded. 

Lelleri, evidently thinking she'd gotten through to him, looked at her husband then at Nerra. "Have you gotten back in touch with Mayalri?" 

Nerra folded his arms and glared. Lelleri looked back at him. 

"She's moving away," he muttered. "Back to Naboo. Her parents don't '_think the neighbourhood is good enough_'," he said with an awful sneer. 

"Oh," Lelleri said. "I'm sorry." 

"Yeah. So was she." 

He pushed his plate away and left the room. Lelleri looked a bit guilty. 

"Oops. I really shouldn't have brought that up again." She placed her knife and fork neatly in the center of her plate, and looked at Tass. "Anyway, young lady. How is your History getting on?" 

"Okay, I guess," Tass answered, with a smile. "I've learnt quite a lot. About the Jedi and the Sith and...stuff." 

"The Jedi?" Jek looked up from the newspaper he was reading. "I was reading something interesting the other day..." 

"What?" 

"The Jedi opened up their Temple not long ago. People are allowed to arrange to come in and see it. Have tours of the place and everything," he said. "They weren't before." 

Tass pondered this. "Really? That sounds good..." It sounded better than good. 

"It's not that expensive, either." 

He didn't say anything else after that, and Tass thought that was probably the end of it. But then Lelleri spoke up. 

"I can tell...you want to go." 

Tass shook her head. "Not if you don't want me to. I mean, I can do fine with my project without having to go places..." 

But Lelleri shook her head too. "I feel guilty about you and Nerra not getting to go places as often as your friends do. Faith Mélenion, she must take...what, about three holidays a year?" 

Tass nodded. 

"So if you and Nerra want to go, I'd be happy to let you. You can find out all sorts of interesting things, and Nerra can look after you..." 

There was the sound of Nerra coming downstairs. He poked his head through the door. 

"What? Go where?" 

"To the Jedi Temple," Lelleri said. "We were just talking about it. Tass would like to go, and it would make up for us not having had a proper holiday for a while..." 

"No it wouldn't," Nerra said. "I heard what you were saying. I'm not going to be Tass's babysitter." 

"You don't have to be..." Tass began, but Nerra cut her off. 

"No way. It sounds boring. I'd rather stay here." 

"And mope, I suppose?" Lelleri said, but Nerra had gone already. She sighed. 

"Well, I don't know, maybe you could go with someone else," she said to Tass. "If he's going to be like that..." 

"I'll take Dekabyn with me," Tass said automatically. 

"Dekabyn..." Lelleri said thoughtfully. "Alright. He's the responsible type. I wouldn't mind." 

Tass smiled. "I can really go?" 

"During Shelova week, you can. We don't want you to miss school," Jek said. 

"I'll make arrangements," Lelleri said. She looked thoughtfully towards the door. "Tass, could you go and find Nerra? I want to talk to him." 

Tass went. She wondered if he'd gone out, but she found him in his room, sitting on his bed. She sat next to him. 

"Go away, Tass, you're a pain." 

She ignored that. "I know how you feel, you know. About school and things. Dekabyn doesn't like it either."   
"What level is Dekabyn on?" 

"Forty-fifth." 

"Hmmm..." He was playing with a piece of tape, winding it around his finger. "Did you say you knew Zarrielli Rinakel? Back at the dinner table?" 

"Yeah. When I went round to Faith's house, him and his sister were there." 

"Faith Mélenion's house?" 

"Yeah, her."

"You're still friends with her?" He was incredulous. 

"Sort of. I mean, we still talk." 

"I wouldn't have thought you would have...you shouldn't have met at all, by rights."

Tass felt a bit of annoyance rise up inside her. "A few years ago she came down here...to _our level_, because she wanted to be friends with someone who'd like her for more than her money. We _are _still friends."

Nerra unwound the piece of tape. "If you say so," 

Tass got up to leave. "Mum wants to talk to you, by the way. She's waiting downstairs." Then she left the room, and went to her own. She didn't work on her project. She just thought for a while. Lelleri and Nerra bickered downstairs. 


	6. Mistakes And Names And Idiots

A Long Time Ago   
_6. Mistakes And Names And Idiots_

The next day, Tass told Dekabyn about the conversation at the dinner table. "Wouldn't you like it? Going to the Jedi Temple? Because...I sort of said I'd take you. It's alright if you don't want to..." 

"Are you kidding, Tass?" Dekabyn asked increduously. "I'd love to go. When is it?" 

"I dunno yet. Sometime in Shelova Week, I guess, Mum doesn't want me to miss school." 

"Great. How much will it cost? Because...well...it'd be expensive, wouldn't it? I was thinking of getting a job soon, but it'd probably make more sense for me to get one now, if we're going to..." 

Tass cut him off. "Dekabyn, Mum's paying for both of us. She doesn't mind." 

"What?" Dekabyn stared at her. "She can't do that, it's not fair. Tell her I'll pay." 

"Don't be like that. It's a treat for you. For both of us." 

"But..." 

"She thought it'd be good, since you're, you know..." She stopped there. 

"Since I'm what?" Dekabyn asked. 

_Oh, that was a dumb thing to say..._

"Since I'm what? A stupid little poor boy who can't survive on his own?" Dekabyn went on fiercely. 

Tass groaned. _Damn._ "Look, it's a nice thing she's doing, okay? Don't throw it back in her face." But she had a feeling she'd said the wrong thing. 

"They all do _nice_ things. All the time. It makes them feel good about themselves." Dekabyn snapped. Then he looked guilty straight away...but he pushed ahead of her and ran off. 

Tass sighed to herself. Brilliant. 

She didn't see him at the start of lunchtime, which was a pain because she wanted to speak to him. She went to the library instead, realising that she seemed to be spending more time in here than anywhere else now. _Why_? What was she doing, drowning her worries in schoolwork or something...? 

She found a bunch of holopads and took them back to her table. What hadn't she done yet? Oh yeah...the reformation of the Republic, for one. She'd been putting it off, it seemed boring, all the politics and stuff...but she ought to mention it nonetheless. She picked up the first holopad and began flipping through the screens. 

_Formation of government...former Empire supporters...Senator Organa...Master Luke Skywalker_...Hey, it was him again. She opened that page. Then, she felt someone sitting down next to her. Dekabyn. 

"Hi," she said, forgetting he was annoyed at her and then remembering again. "Dek, I didn't..." 

"Sorry, Tass," he said sincerely. "I was just...well, I don't know. But I didn't mean to say that you and your parents are anything like the sixth-levelers or anything..." 

"It's okay, Dek. Honestly." She moved her eyes back to the holopad, then realised something. "Sixth-levelers? We're calling each other _names _now?" 

"It wasn't my idea..." Dekabyn muttered. 

"Well, whose idea was it? Are we starting a revolution or something now?" When he didn't answer she sighed and went back to her work. "I should be doing this. I'm still behind, I think...there's loads I haven't done..." She looked at the holopad, still in her hand. "Let's see. Princess Leia and Han Solo got married. And Luke married and had children. Hey...he named one of them after his father..." 

"Vader?" Dekabyn asked. 

"Anakin." 

"Poor kid," Dekabyn grimaced. "Maybe he changed his name. Imagine having to be named after an evil dictator all your life..." 

"Luke's father saved his life and killed the Emperor as well, Dek, you know that! I'm sure he was perfectly happy with his name." 

"Well..." 

"Why do you care, anyway?" She hoped she didn't sound annoyed, because she wasn't, really...just _worried_ about something and she wasn't sure what... 

"_I_ was named after an evil dictator, that's why." 

She blinked. "You are?" 

"Yep. Governor Dekabyn Amnawi Scelus...remember him?" 

Tass thought for a minute. "Ages and ages ago...the governor of...oh...that place where there's always bad weather...what's it called...Tornama." 

"That's the one. Killed a lot of people. Used to threaten people by taking their kids and saying they'd kill them if they didn't join them." 

Tass gaped. "Why would your mother want to call you that?" 

"Who knows? She's mad. She did say, though...said it was because if we let him poison that perfectly good name then he'd have won something else." 

"Oh. Well...I suppose I see the logic in that." 

"_I_ don't." 

"Look on the bright side, she could have called you 'Palpatine'" 

Dekabyn gave a small smile. "Yeah, okay, I suppose there's that to be grateful for." 

The schoolday went by slowly. History was last lesson. Regimesh took her aside at the end of it. Dekabyn hovered by the door, waiting for her. 

"I've seen you researching in the library, Miss Vari. I must say I'm impressed. Nonetheless, you have to work _extremely _hard to make up for years of poor performance. This is clear?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Have you been working at home?" 

"A little..." 

"A little? Miss Vari, there is _nothing _more important than your History work right now. This is vital to your future!" 

"Well, sir, I..." 

"Miss Vari, let me jog your memory," he said with a sigh. He went to his table, pushed a button, and took some papers from the tray that popped out. _Oh no..._

He began reading. "Electrons on Naboo took place two years ago. The aspharagus takes food to the stomach..." He frowned. "The next one I won't read..." 

Tass cringed. _Thank the heavens the rest of the class isn't here. _Regimesh always took delight in reading out stupid mistakes to the whole class. The third one, which he had for good reason not read, had had the class in stitches for days afterward. 

"I think I've made my point. A year of bad performance, Miss Vari..." Tass glanced at Dekabyn, he wasn't laughing. "Understand?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Go." 

She walked to the door, and down the corridor, Dekabyn at her side. 

When Tass got home, someone was yelling. Two people, in fact. She followed the voices...it was her mother and Nerra. 

"It's already costing me a small fortune to have Tass and Dekabyn go to the Temple!" Lelleri was snapping. "And now this! It's the last thing I need. Understand? The. Very. Last. Thing." 

Tass saw Nerra open his mouth. 

"Don't say anything, Nerra, if you do I may be forced to hit you." Lelleri said. 

"I was just going to _say_," Nerra said angrily. "that if you're that short on money, just stop Dekabyn going with Tass. It's not like he's part of the family or anything." 

"Tass wants him to come, and besides, I don't want her to go all the way to the other side of the planet on her own. Dekabyn's a responsable boy, he can look after her." 

"Hello," Tass said nonchalantly. Both of them turned to look at her. 

"What's going on?" she asked. 

"Ask your brother," Lelleri said. She looked at Nerra. 

"Broke a window," he muttered. 

"Why?" Tass asked. 

"Because he got in a fight," Lelleri said shortly. "And it resulted in things being broken. And he doesn't have the money to pay for them. And he cut his hand, and he hit someone around the face. Nerra...this has got to _stop_, understand?" 

Nerra nodded. With a sigh, Lelleri went into the kitchen. Nerra stayed where he was. 

"_Doesn't have the money to pay for them_?" Tass asked. "You _do _have money. You can't make Mum pay for stuff that you ought to, it's-" 

"Shut up, Tass." 

"Remember when we were younger and shared a room? We used to collect creditchips, and we hid them in that compartment...they're still there, y'know. So why don't you use those? Most of them are yours."

He said nothing. 

"So," Tass said crossly. "Since the room is mine now, I suppose I get to keep the money?" 

"Sometimes, Tass...I hate you!" 

Tass was horrified. Nerra stalked past her and out of the room. 

_What an IDIOT.___

Furious, she went to her bedroom. She turned on the holovision and watched it for a while, then got bored, walked to the wall and pressed a well-concealed button. A secret compartment sprung open next to it. Inside were several credit chips, and a holopic of her and Nerra. She glared down at the picture, picked out a few of the credit chips, and then went back downstairs. 


	7. Sides

A Long Time Ago   
_7. Sides_   
__

Tass told Dekabyn about Nerra the next day. He looked thoughtful once she'd finished. 

"Who'd he get into a fight with, then?" 

"Don't know. _Sixth-levelers_, I suppose." She said the words carefully. 

Dekabyn looked away. "Look, _I'm _not going to go and start fights...I'm just going to stand up for myself, okay?" 

Tass had been thinking about this all night. "But the thing is...we're making it _worse _for ourselves, Dekabyn. Everytime one of us fights with them, whether we started it or not...it just lowers their opinion of us low-levelers." 

"_Low-levelers_?" Dekabyn practically spat the words out. "_Tass_! They use that term to insult _us_, and you bloody well told me off for insulting them back! _Sixth-levelers_! Whose side are you on?" 

Tass felt her face going bright, bright red. "I'm sorry, Dek...I forgot. That term gets thrown around so much, on the holovision and things..." 

"_Low-levelers_," Dekabyn snarled, and this time he actually did spit on the hard metal floor. "It's driving me crazy. All the stuff I've been hearing...you know how that senator got shot a few months ago?" 

Tass nodded, although in all honesty she'd forgotten about it. 

"Well, they're still going on about it, because he was shot while he was visiting the..." he scrunched up his face "..._low levels_...and they're saying how none of us children have any hope or future growing up there...and my mum was furious..."

"Really?" Tass had met Dekabyn's mum only a few times, but had liked her. 

"Yeah. Do you _know_," he said suddenly, looking her right in the eyes, "that just a few years ago...okay, more like ten...the Senators had this idea that involved taking away the children of anyone below thirtieth level and having them be fostered by people better off...and they were going to entirely reconstruct the whole place as well and have them not be houses anymore...Tass, our parents would have had nowhere to go, and no-one would have cared!" 

Tass felt her breath catch in her throat. _Oh stars, there's so much I haven't been paying attention to...more than just History, that's for certain...___

"But they...changed their minds, I take it," she managed to say. 

Dekabyn gave a hollow laugh, and didn't say anything. He looked at her and then ran on ahead, not waiting. She could practically sense his frustration. 

Tass had the words "_Whose side are you on_?"echoing in her head all morning. 

At lunchtime, it became evident that Dekabyn was deeply ashamed of what he'd said. He bought her lunch (despite her protests), he helped her with her Mathematics, and he carted books around for her all day. By the time they were about to go home, Tass realised she hadn't worked on her project at all. Still, she didn't care...she was too busy being both pleased and worried. A strange combination. 

Still, she felt like she understood her brother's actions a little better now. 

"Tass," Dekabyn said nervously, as they walked past classroom after classroom. "I...er...you don't have to be on a side, y'know. And maybe I don't want to be on one either." 

"Thank you," Tass said, and felt slightly stupid for a reason she didn't know. "We can be our _own _side, if you like. We won't start fights, and we'll show them all what we're made of by...well, by winning I suppose." 

Dekabyn actually put his arm around her. "Good idea." 

There was a noise behind them and they both turned around. It was Faith. Dekabyn dropped his arm rather quickly. 

"I...er...I have something to show you," she said. 

"What?" Tass asked. 

"Come with me." 

She led them into an empty classroom. Tass followed. Dekabyn followed as well, although rather reluctantly. Inside the room there was a table with a glass on it. 

"Faith, what's..." 

But Faith held her hand up for silence. "Watch." 

She raised her hand, then lowered it again and turned to Tass and Dekabyn. "Oh...and you might want to go to the other side of the room." 

She placed the piece of broken glass on the table, held out her hand and raised it. The glass started to rise into the air... 

...and so did the table. 

"Damn," Faith muttered. She lowered her hand again, and then lifted it. This time just the glass rose. It rose, and rose...it reached the ceiling...Faith was concentrating pretty hard... 

Then it fell. It smashed. Tass and Dekabyn ran to the middle of the room. 

"How'd you-" Dekabyn began. 

But Faith wasn't listening to him. "It's true...I can do these things..." 

"Faith-" 

"My parents are going to hate it," she said with a groan, sinking into a sitting position on the floor. "They always said...well, a lot of things about the Force and the Jedi and all that...oh, what if they..." 

"They won't," Tass said, in as calm a voice as she could. "I think you ought to go home, Faith, go home and tell them." 

"I _can't_," she groaned. "You don't know what...look, my great-great-or-whatever-grandparents gave the Empire money to help them _kill _people with powers like this! And they didn't even care if they were Jedi! They used to kill _kids_!" 

Tass gawped; she hadn't known that the Mélenion's dislike of Jedi had gone quite _that _far. 

"Kids?" Dekabyn said in disgust. "Your family gave money to..." 

"Dek, this isn't the time or place!" Tass snapped. Faith was starting to whimper. "Faith, would you listen? They're not going to disown you or anything. I mean, there isn't a war on right now, right? They wouldn't have any reason to...oh for heaven's sake...look, don't be so worried!" 

"Easy for you to say!" Faith said, tears pouring down her face now. 

"No it isn't..." Dekabyn said, but Tass shot him such a look that he shut up. 

"Listen," Tass said, kneeling down near her friend. "Me and Dek are actually going to the Jedi Temple soon, okay? Because of all the extra work I've had to do, we're going to do some research there. We can ask the people there...maybe you won't even have to tell." she finished lamely. 

"Okay..." Faith sniffed. 

"They might...oh, I dunno, they might have developed some clever way of getting rid of the things in your blood that make it happen. I dunno." 

"Can I come with you then?" Faith asked. 

"No," Dekabyn said. 

Tass considered this. "Your parents would wonder why you'd gone." 

"I could lie about it." 

"It's probably best if you don't." Tass said firmly. She had no desire whatsoever to let a nice few days out be ruined by Dekabyn and Faith's bickering. "We promise to ask, okay?" 

Faith nodded. 

"Now, we'd better clean this broken glass up." 

She didn't do any more of the project. She felt slightly guilty about it, especially after the lecture Regimesh had given her, but she did have enough time in which to finish it, she thought. Besides, the noise the construction workers were making outside were distracting her. 

She went to the window, pulled up the blind and looked outside. Across the endless strips of metal and lit-up buildings she could just about make out a building covered in little lights-that must be where they were working. They had to be taking the building apart brick by brick, or something silly like that. 

_Honestly, they don't have to make so much noise about it.___

There was a large explosion from the window then. She heard Nerra, in his own room, give a yell. 

"It's just the workers!" Lelleri called from downstairs. "You two should be asleep, you have school tomorrow." 

Tass went to look outside again. The building had almost vanished, and there was a ship hovering near it down, probably delivering more equipment. 

She lowered the blinds again and went to bed. 


	8. Real People

A Long Time Ago   
_8. Real People_   


They'd be leaving in a few minutes. Tass cheked her bag again. Books, clothes, holopads...she had almost everything, except money. She went to the secret compartment in her room, and took out some of the creditchips. The holopic of her and Nerra was still in there, she noticed. _Hmmmm._

She went outside to meet Dekabyn. He was waiting at the door, along with her parents. Nerra wasn't there. 

Lelleri kissed her goodbye, much to Tass's annoyance. "You two be careful," she said. 

"Contact us when you get there," Jekk said. 

Tass nodded. 

"Bye, Mrs and Mr Vari," Dekabyn said. 

"Bye, Mum and Dad!" Tass said. "And say bye to Nerra for me as well, okay?" 

Jek nodded. Dekabyn led Tass out of the door, and closed it behind him. 

"Okay...let's go find the airtrain station..." 

They started walking. 

On board the train, Tass thought to herself for a while. She wondered what the Jedi Temple would look like. She'd seen pictures, but maybe it'd been changed since then. 

"I've never been to the other side of Coruscant before," Dekabyn said thoughtfully. "Not _ever_." 

"I did once," Tass said. "But I was so little I don't remember it anymore." 

"Tell your mum thanks from me," Dekabyn said. "For paying for all this." 

"Don't worry, I already did." 

They watched the world fly by the window for a few minutes, and then Tass said something else. 

"What if they don't want to help Faith?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"Like, if they say she should have come by herself or something..." 

"Why?" 

"It's just...the old Jedi Order were pretty...dismissive of this sort of stuff. I know they've probably changed...but...history repeats itself. Or something." 

Dekabyn looked as though he had no idea what she was on about. 

"Never mind," she said lamely. 

Dekabyn nodded, and then after a few minutes he spoke. 

"I was thinking. About all that stuff I said..." 

"What, you mean...the other day? About...oh, you know? Taking sides and all that?" 

"Yeah." 

"But we decided what we were going to do." 

"I was thinking about your brother." 

"Oh," Tass said. "What, him starting fights and things?" 

"Yeah." 

"Nothing will happen," she reassured him. "He's just....oh, he's just growing up and making an idiot out of himself while doing so." 

Dekabyn actually smiled at that. "Oh. Well, who doesn't?" 

They let the subject drop. 

The train continued on. It wound through skyscapers and past the place where construction work was taking place. Dekabyn glanced out of the window thoughtfully. Tass took out her project, and started typing things out. Dekabyn turned away from the window. 

"Wow. That's going to be one seriously good project, you know." 

She blushed. "Thanks." 

"You really got into it, didn't you?" 

"Yeah." 

Dekabyn didn't ask why, but she decided to tell him anyway. "It just feels different now. Like these were all real people with real flaws and virtues and...stuff. Like some people say that Kenobi wasn't a good teacher, but others say the destruction of the whole order was down to Anakin alone, and some people say Yoda was wrong...and so on." 

Dekabyn nodded. Tass could tell he was impressed. 

"What do you think, Tass?" 

"About what?" 

"Well...about the whole thing. Who was right and who was wrong and things." 

"Er..." No-one had really asked her that yet. "Well...you said once that the old Jedi were corrupt...but think about it, they all died, even the kids. And the kids didn't do anything." 

Dekabyn actually laughed. "Well, that's funny, because when we were talking about that whole Tusken thing, you said it was alright that the kids died in _that _case." 

"I did _not_," Tass said crossly. "I said it was evil!" 

Dekabyn raised an eyebrow. 

"I did!" 

"Alright, alright," he said, but he was grinning like he'd just proved her wrong. She had an urge to smack him. 

"This whole thing, it was a _war_, Dekabyn. Everyone was in a war. The Rebellion and the Empire, the Jedi and Sith...even the Tuskens and the settlers were sort of warring. And...y'know, this is the weird thing...we keep disagreeing and I dunno if we'd have even been on the same side in some of those situations." 

She realised before she'd even said it all that Dekabyn was likely to be hurt by that. Why was she saying it, it wasn't important...but Dekabyn was staring at her. Just staring. 

"Tass, Regimesh really doesn't know what a student he's got in his class." 

She stared back at him. It turned into a staring contest and they both giggled a little. Then Tass sighed. 

"Forget what I just said, Dek...I'd _try _to be on your side." 

"I know," he said, almost casually. "But if we were _actually _born about a hundred years ago, we might have been born in different places and never met at all. And then we might have wound up on different sides and just been anonymous soldiers shooting at each other." 

This unnerved her slightly. 

"I could've been a stormtrooper, and you could've been a Rebel," he went on. 

"You wouldn't work for the Empire!" 

"But I was born in a different place...who knows?" 

This all seemed quite big and insane to Tass. Dekabyn looked like he wanted her to say something to put his mind at rest. She just shook her head. "There's no way you...or a different-universe you- would ever be on the same side as something like the Emperor." 

"Thank you, Tass," Dekabyn said quietly, and she wished she knew what he was thinking. 

The hotel wasn't a particularly flash one. It wasn't all that nice, really. The enterance hall looked like it could do with a good coat of paint, and one of the windows was broken. Droids were working on it, but they weren't moving very fast. 

"Name?" the tired-looked Mon Calamari at the desk asked. 

"Tass Vari," 

"Oh yeah," she said, checking her datapad. "You're in room 1138." 

Tass nodded, but from behind her Dekabyn asked. "What about me?" 

"Only one room's booked," she said with a shrug. 

Tass and Dekabyn looked at each other. Dekabyn sighed. 

"I guess your mum forgot I was coming. Or something." 

"She had a lot on her mind." 

"I'll sleep out in the corridor, no-one will notice." 

"Don't be stupid," Tass said, and added, as soon as they were out of earshot of the receptionist, "someone'll probably shoot you in your sleep. You can sleep in my room, on the floor, alright?" 

That was exactly what he wound up doing.   



	9. The Temple

A Long Time Ago   
_9. The Temple_

Tass was awoken the next morning by Dekabyn swearing loudly. He'd got up, and since the room was so dark had walked straight into a deactivated cleaning droid in the corner. 

"Forgot where I was," he muttered. "I'll go outside while you change..." 

"You do that..." 

Tass got changed quickly, and then let him back in. Something occured to her. 

"You didn't bring a change of clothes? Or nightclothes or _anything_?" 

He turned very red and looked at his feet. "I know how revolting it makes me look, alright? But Mum just bought me some new clothes and I didn't want to take them in case they were lost or stolen from the room or something, and a bunch of my other clothes were ruined yesterday because the washdroid malfunctioned, and...well...these were the only clothes I could take." 

Tass looked at him, not sure what to say. "Oh. Um..." 

"So now I expect I'm all dirty and smelly," Dekabyn muttered. "Great impression to make, really great..." 

"Don't worry," Tass said, finally finding her voice. "You don't smell. You look fine. Don't worry." But she was starting to worry herself now. 

On the airtaxi, she thought about what her friend had said. She knew in the back of her mind that Dekabyn was worse off than her, but she'd never really..._realized_. She knew he wouldn't like it if she felt sorry for him, and so she tried not to. 

They didn't talk very much. They were both nervous. 

The airtaxi eventually came to a stop outside a building. It had statues leading up to the enterance, and looked more like something you'd find on Naboo than something you'd find on Coruscant, but it wasn't anything too much out of the ordinary. No taller than any of the other buildings, either. 

The Jedi Temple. 

"This is it?" Dekabyn asked. 

"Yeah..." Tass said. "Yeah. I saw pictures." 

They got off the taxi onto the platform. Tass looked down at the city beneath her. She wasn't actually that far from the ground. She looked up at the Temple once more...all the pictures in the world couldn't have prepared her for actually _being_ here. 

"It used to be taller, didn't it?" Dekabyn said thoughtfully. "The tallest building on the planet. Could've reached the sky." 

"That's what I heard," Tass murmured. She walked up to the nearest statue...the one at the front. It was a slightly different colour from the others. It seemed to glitter slightly. 

"Luke Skywalker," she read. "Founder of the new Jedi Order, and son of Anakin Skywalker." 

"There's two more statues around the sides," Dekabyn said. "Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader." 

"That's interesting..." 

"D'ya want to stop and take holographs?" 

Tass considered it. "Maybe later." 

They want past the other, smaller statues...many Jedi, some of them young and some of them old, some of them from species that didn't even exist anymore. Tass held her breath for some reason. 

Dekabyn reached the door first. There was a blue button on the side. He pressed it. Instantly the clear sound of a bell rang out. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere deep within the Temple. 

"Now they're _all_ going to know we're here, I guess," Dekabyn said, sounding somewhat uncertain. 

The door creaked open. Standing on the other side was a boy. He was wearing Jedi robes, but other than that, he looked incredibly ordinary. The three of them looked at each other for a second. Coruscant traffic whizzed by overhead. 

"Hi," Tass said eventually. 

The boy smiled. "Wait. Don't tell me...Tass Vari and Dekabyn Resh, right?" 

"Right," Dekabyn said in surprise. 

The boy grinned. "I'm Owen. Owen Skywalker." 

"Seriously?" Tass said. Her voice came out high and squeaky. She blushed bright red. 

"Yeah." Owen said, grinning. "Luke's great-great-a-bunch-of-greats-grandson." 

"Wow," Dekabyn said, clearly impressed. "But you're hardly older than us." 

"I'm eighteen," he answered. "Nineteen in a few months. in." 

Tass and Dekabyn stepped inside. The door slid shut. 

It was all _light _inside. There were hundreds of doors, and hundreds of corridors, and stairways and lifts...but the light came from the ceilings and the walls, where thousands upon thousands of names were written in shining ink. 

"Oh _wow_," Dekabyn said, for the second time that day. 

Tass agreed with that. 

"Every single Jedi ever in the Order," Owen said proudly. "Masters, Padawans, Knights...even traitors." 

"Why?" Dekabyn asked. 

Owen shrugged. "Because they weren't _always_ traitors, I suppose. It was my sister's idea, anyway." 

Dekabyn did not appear too satisfied with that. Tass was still looking at the walls, trying to read every name and see if there was anyone she recognized from her studies. But she let Dekabyn pull her away. 

They followed Owen up one of the stairways. 

"I take it you'd like a tour," he said cheerfully. "If this is all for schoolwork." 

"Yes please," Tass said enthusiastically. 

"Right! We'll go to...well...I think it's a room you'll be interested in." 

He led them through several corridors and up a few more stairs. They stopped a few times on the way, to look into other rooms...the Archives, and a meditation chamber. People were walking about in them. A few of them looked back at Tass, but others paid her little attention. 

They reached their destination. Owen said, "Here we are." 

It was a beautiful room. The ceiling was made entirely of glass, and a four-poster bed sat in the corner. It looked very, very old...looked like it should be in pieces. But it wasn't. 

There were other things...statues and books and pictures...on the glass shelves around the walls. Tass looked up...the sun and the airways were overhead. She could see her reflection in the glass. Ships flew straight through it. 

In the middle of the room, the sun illuminating the dust covering it, was a tomb. It was decorated with pictures...of world-changing events and of people. It was Luke's tomb. On the top was a simple engraving of a silver flower. 

"The _Starwalker Flower_," Owen spoke up. Tass turned to look at him. "Originated on Tatooine, extremely rare over here. The people of Tatooine named it. They couldn't use Skywalker because hey, it was taken." He grinned. 

"Uh-huh." That was all Tass could manage for some reason. Things had..._happened_...in this room. And now she was in it. And she'd never know all of the things that had happened, what person had owned the bed and who'd put up the glass shelves... 

She walked to the shelves and examined all the artifacts on them. Drawings of various people. A ring with a green stone in it, perched on top of a small but very thick book. Some old lightsabres. Just...things. 

She felt sort of strange, as if Time was hanging out in this very room, grinning at her and looking at the pictures and playing with the ring. She looked at Owen. 

"D'ya want to stay and take some pictures?" he asked. "Or...well, d'ya want some lunch?" 

The Jedi Temple had a cafeteria. Tass had not expected that. It was in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows, so you could look out over all of Coruscant. 

"It's based on the old Council room," Owen explained. 

Owen's sister, Ami, had joined them. "I wonder what the old Council would've thought about that," she said. 

"I wonder too," Tass said eagerly. "The old Council was headed by Master Yoda, right?" 

"Yes," Ami said. "One of only two Jedi to survive the Purges, as you know." 

"Yeah...and, well, do you have any stories I could tell? Stories to put in my project. I've got a lot of facts, but not much else." 

"Opinions?" Owen asked. "Do you have those?" 

"Oh. Yeah, I do." 

"Stories," Ami said thoughtfully. "The thing is...many of the old stories were lost. There were the stories in that old Journal, I suppose..." 

"Whose journal was it?" Dekabyn asked. 

"Qui-Gon Jinn's," Owen answered. "Very, very insightful....helped explain a great deal of things." Ami nodded. "So, yes. There's that. But I could tell you what happened after the happy ending." 

"Okay," Tass said. "You mean...after the Emperor was defeated?" 

"Right," Owen said. He glanced at each of them, trying to hide a smile. "Luke Skywalker woke up after the celebration on Endor. The funeral pyre had gone out. Everything was ashes. For ages he and his twin sister and their friends sat about and planned. Endor is a good place to think...it's the trees that do it." 

Tass didn't really understand that, but she listened anyway, hurriedly transferring the words to her datapad. 

"Finally, they flew to Coruscant, eager to rebuild the Jedi Order. They had a huge job ahead of them...most of the Temple was ruined, most everyone with Force powers afraid to speak." Tass was suddenly reminded of the other reason she was here. "But they did it. Somehow. Han Solo and Princess Leia were married...the Solo line continues to this day, I'll add...and Luke too found a wife, a young woman who had been working for the Empire." 

That had been in the History books, she remembered. In one of them. 

"And they slowly learned about their father and mother. They discovered what had become of their mother, and how their father became what he was. They found people who had actually known their mother and father. And they rebuilt the Republic and the Jedi Order. Their names are spoken in awe to this day." 

The Jedi around their table were eating and talking quietly, although Tass thought maybe a few of them were listening. She couldn't help but redden. She wasn't a Jedi, after all...and yet she was here. 

"An awful lot for just a few people to achieve," Owen said quietly, and Tass thought she knew what he was telling her, although she wasn't entirely sure. 

"Thank you," she said. And then she remembered her manners. "Thank you, sir." 

"Sir?" Owen said in mock horror. "Call me Owen." 

"Just Owen?" Dekabyn spoke up. "Not Master Owen?" 

"No, thank you," he said cheerfully. 

"Well, ur, Owen..." Tass said nervously. "There's something else we...well, I...wanted to ask you about." 

"Really?" he said. "What's that?" 

"I have a friend at school," Tass began. "and recently, she's...well, I think she has Force powers. She can levitate things, and...stuff." 

Owen and Ami nodded. 

"And...well, her parents don't like Jedi and there's no way they'll let her come here...so we were wondering what we could do." 

Ami looked thoughtful. "She wouldn't be the first to be in that position." 

"Where do you live?" Owen asked. 

"Er, quite a long way away from here." 

"Hmmm. We give classes, you see, to help those who can't control their powers...maybe she could attend." 

"Her parents'd probably notice..." 

"Well..." Owen said thoughtfully. "We've got datapads and things we can give you to give to her. That might be of some help." 

"That'd be great," Tass said. 

"What's her name?" Ami asked. 

"Faith." 

"Unusual name," Owen pondered. "Very interesting." 

They took a look in the Archives next. Tass had wanted to. However, the librarian kept looking at her like she shouldn't be there, so she asked to leave sooner than she would have liked. Then Dekabyn wanted to go to and look at the Jedi starships, so they did that as well. 

Then, Owen took them to another room to get the datapads he'd talked about. It was located, weirdly enough, behind a waterfall. 

"In the old Jedi Temple, there was a room called the Room Of A Thousand Fountains," Ami explained. "But when it was rebuilt...we didn't really want to rebuild so many waterfalls and things, because it seemed odd to have the Jedi with a _thousand _fountains while Tatooine had none...so we built just one." 

Tass hurriedly noted this down. 

"I never really thought of that," Dekabyn said. 

Owen gave Tass the datapads. 

"Okay," he said. "Your visit is over now, then?" 

"Yeah," Tass said, wistfully. 

"You can come back any time, you know," Owen said. "Visitors are always welcome, as long as we know who they are." 

Before Tass could respond to that, he continued. "Here...I just thought of something. You can have my comlink number." He dug about in his pocket, and picked out a small chip with a number stamped into it. "Here." 

Tass stared. 

"Give it to Faith too, if she's ever in trouble she could contact me." 

Dekabyn was staring too. 

"You're the _head of the Jedi Order_," he managed to say. 

"Yes, but I have a good idea of who's trustworthy and who's not," he said. Then he smiled. 

Tass smiled back. 

A few minutes later, they'd bidden goodbye to Owen and Ami, and were standing outside waiting for the airtaxi. The real world seemed so dull and drab now... 

"The head of the Jedi Order gave you his comlink number," Dekabyn said in wonderment. 

"Can't see Master Yoda ever doing that," Tass said. She was holding the chip tightly in her hand. 

"That was...weird," Dekabyn said. "I wasn't expecting...well, you know, they said how aloof and arrogant the old Jedi were. The new Order...I bet they're hiding something, y'know?" 

"Must you be so cynical?" Tass asked. 

"Well...yes. I need to balance you out. You always reckon the world's so perfect." 

"I do not..." 

But neither of them really wanted to carry the conversation on. Tass looked back at the Jedi Temple. Luke Skywalker seemed to be grinning at her. 

She and Dekabyn sat together and waited for the journey home. 


	10. Changes

Note: I agreed with MistiWhitesun...the last chapter was pretty rushed. It's been edited a little. :)

A Long Time Ago  
_10. Changes_

Almost a week after her visit to the Temple, Tass was sitting in Art class. Her teacher...the blue Twi'lek who'd she nearly run over once...had told them he was sick of telling them what to do, and just this once they could draw whatever the hell they wanted. His own words. 

Tass wasn't having a good day. Language Studies had been horrible, as she was completely useless at it. She'd lost the datapad she used for recording homework, and gotten into trouble for it. Also, she had a stomach ache. Probably the fault of the awful food they served the students around here. Poison. 

She stared absently out of the window. It was a foggy day, and a rather cold one too. She could make out the construction workers, with their huge towering demolish-droids, over in the distance if she looked hard. They weren't doing much. 

Dekabyn didn't do Art. She was all alone in this class. The girl who sat next to her, a Noorian called Maritia, poked her in the back with a sharp fingernail. 

"Tass! You'd better _do _something. You've just got a blank piece of film." 

"Really? I wasn't aware," Tass said with a sigh. She picked up the nearby box of colourfilm, and began doodling. It was better than doing nothing. But when she actually looked at the paper properly, all she saw was a few mishapen blobs. She sighed, and picked up the eraser liquid. She squirted a little too much on. 

"Watch it!" Maritia hissed. "That nearly went all over mine." 

"Sorry," Tass murmered. 

_Right_, she thought. _Do it right, this time. You're meant to be _good_ at Art._

She started drawing. Start with something simple, she thought... 

Aritime, the Art Master, came to take a look a few minutes later. Tass hadn't finished yet...in fact, she'd barely even started, although at least she actually had an idea now. 

"Looks good," Aritime said to her, looking over her shoulder. "What's it supposed to be?" 

"I don't know yet, sir." Tass answered. 

"Good...he mumbled vaguely, and moved on to another student. 

So far on the film she had very little. There was a planet, two suns in the top left-hand corner, sort of vague lines and circles all over the place...and that was it. She ought to put something in it. 

Well, she knew what Darth Vader looked like. She began drawing him in, then colouring it. Then the Queen. Then images from those pictures...the Jedi, the Masters, the Apprentices, the Sith, the Temple... 

Luke, as well. She let the dusty picture and the statue merge in her mind, and drew it slowly. He stared out at her from the very centre of the picture. He seemed to be smiling. 

It looked pretty good. 

So that was how things had been. What were they now? 

What _were_ they now? 

She drew the view from the Art Room. She drew the _Merlin_. Then she drew the flower that had been on the tomb. That took the longest...she kept accidently drawing bits wrong, but kept going anyway. Colouring it in with the colourfilm took even longer, but when she stopped and took a look at it, it looked perfect. It looked almost exactly like it had looked on the silver of the tomb, but different, decorated with mistakes. 

She felt the sun on her back...she was standing next to a window, after all. The air was covered in dust. Other people were starting to leave, packing their bags and talking to each other. The buzzer must have gone without her noticing. 

She signed her painting simply with a question mark, then changed her mind and wrote her name. She propped it up against the wall, and walked through the dust to the door. She couldn't help turning around before she reached it, to admire the painting once more. 

It looked_ perfect_. 

She left. 

When she got home, she felt better than she had all day. Her stomach ache had gone, and she was sure the homework datapad would turn up. No-one else was around, they'd probably all gone out, She collapsed on a chair, and turned the holovision on. 

She wasn't planning to watch it for long, since the painting in Art class had reminded her of the project that remained unfinished. She'd written up the notes on the Jedi Temple, and she was very proud of it, but she needed a bit more stuff. As it turned out, she was in luck...on channel 35, there was a programme on about the old Jedi themselves. It had nearly finished, but it looked interesting. 

She reached for her datapad. She probably wouldn't take many notes...she wasn't fast enough, by the time one interesting thing had been written down there'd be another one...but she might be able to write a _few _things. 

"In conclusion," the presenter was saying, "it was surely their own arrogance that led to their downfall. It was one of their own who participated in the greatest act of destruction our world has ever known. He might have seen the light and put an end to it, but how many deaths could have been prevented had Anakin Skywalker not become a Jedi?" 

_Hang on, _Tass thought. _That doesn't really..._ But the thought ended there. Maybe the guy was right. Maybe everyone was a little bit right, when it came to History. After all...they hadn't been there. They hadn't been the people who'd done such things. All they really had was lots of guesswork. 

A female presenter...a slightly overweight but smiling red Twi'lek...was on the screen now. An image of the old Jedi Temple, the one that was up in the sky, was behind her. 

"They say that a single person - unless he or she is in a position of power - does not usually make history," she said. "Yet, in this particular slice of history, we have many heroes, most of whom would have been forgotten by the world by now if not for the parts that Destiny gave them to play. True, we have princesses and queens and 'the chosen one', but we also have one or two ordinary Jedi Knights not on the Council, we have a space pirate and an unimportant Wookie, we have a hopeless and mostly useless Gungan, and perhaps most important, we have an ordinary farmboy, unaware of his destiny, who caused the greatest victory of our age. Maybe Theyare wrong, and a single person can indeed change the course of history-" 

_BANG.___

The door had opened. Tass turned her attention away from the holo. Nerra, Jek and Lelleri had just come in. They didn't call for her, they were yelling at the tops of their voices. 

"It's not just that you've let yourself down, it's _everyone_, what are they going to think of us-" 

"They'll think we're terrible parents, to have you doing things like this." 

"_You_? What about _me_? You're making it seem like I just went out there and...and...and beat somebody up just because I _wanted _to!" 

"Well, didn't you?!" 

Tass turned off the holo. "What's going on?" 

"This is stupid. I'm going." Nerra said, ignoring her. He turned towards the front door, but Lelleri held him back. 

"Tell your sister," she said firmly. 

"No kriffing way." He wrenched out of Lelleri's grasp, and since Jek was blocking the doorway, stormed upstairs. Tass stared after him, then looked questioningly at her parents. 

"Er..." 

"Him and his friends," Lelleri muttered, sitting down on the sofa. "The security forces found them. Arrested them all, apart from the ones who got away. They were beating up a young man. Zarrielli Rinakel, to be exact." 

"_Stars_. But why?" 

"Who knows?" Jek said. "We can't get an explanation out of him, and trust me, we've tried." 

Lelleri sighed. "Sorry, Tass. I hope none of this is affecting you." 

"What do you mean?" 

"It's awful to have a family member's reputation rub off on you. I should know. My older sisters...back when no-one here could go to school..." She shook her head. Tass was interested. She knew about her aunts...they lived on Aurea and she'd only seen them once or twice, but she didn't know about what sort of things must have been going on when her parents were younger. 

"They didn't do _that _much," Lelleri said, looking at her. "Got arrested a few times...did stupid, stupid things like dropping glass from high-up places and air-taxi surfing and heaven knows what else." 

"Whoa," Tass said. "Was anyone...hurt?" 

Lelleri just shrugged at that, and then went to make dinner. When it was ready they ate it in front of the holo, without speaking much. Nerra was still upstairs. 

After she'd finished, Tass went to find him. He was, as she'd predicted, in his room. 

"Hello," she said, standing in the doorway. 

"Go away," he muttered. Then he added, "_Please_. I really do just want to be alone." 

"If you want," she said, and went into her own bedroom. She sat on the bed and reached for a holopad. But before long, she heard Nerra saying. "Oh, all right...I need to explain it to _someone_, no-one else will listen." 

Tass left her room. She'd mostly expected him to do that. He told her almost everything, really. "Okay.." 

"It was that..._idiot_, Rinakel," Nerra said. He glanced at her just for a second, and she nodded. _Hard to disagree with that. _"I wasn't doing anything. But one of my friends...Rissarae, she's Ket's girlfriend, she's on the twenty-first level...she was talking to him, because her brother knows him or something, and then Ket came along and told him to get away from her, and Rinakel said to Rissa that she could do a lot better than Ket, and...well, they started fighting, and Rissa tried to make them stop and then some of the others joined in and Rinakel hit one of the smaller boys, because he's a coward like that, and everyone just..." He trailed off. 

"Just started all hitting him." 

"Yeah," he muttered. "We didn't really _hurt _him. Not _that _much. Just...one of the others, not me...we sort of threatened to throw him over the edge..." 

"Oh, you didn't!" 

"No, _I _didn't. Ket sort of held him over the edge...and he was kicking and screaming but, well, he had to know we weren't _really _going to let him go." 

"He must've been scared senseless," Tass could barely believe she was standing up for Zarrielli, but well...to be looking down, from so high up, knowing your fate rested in an enemy's hands... 

"He knew we wouldn't really do it," Nerra said. "That Ket wouldn't really do it." 

"What happened after that?" Tass asked. 

"Well, the security forces turned up...I actually think Rissarae went and got them, because no-one's seen her since...and they saw, well, they saw Ket pull him back from over the edge and keep hitting him...I swear I wasn't doing anything, not at that point...but they arrested all of us. And Mum and Dad came and got me...and that's it really. Oh wait, no it isn't," he said bleakly. "If the school gets wind of this, which I expect they will, then I've had it. They'll expel me." 

There was nothing she could say to that, because he was right. "Maybe they'll give you another chance," she said lamely. 

"I keep having chances. I keep blowing them," Nerra said angrily. "I can't stand it here. Mayalri left me, and people treat me...and the rest of us...like _dirt_, and...it's..." 

"Yeah. It's okay. I understand," Tass said, although she wasn't entirely sure she did. 

"I shouldn't have beaten him up," Nerra said guiltily. "I should've told Ket to leave him alone-" 

Tass agreed wholeheartedly with this, really, but she needed something to say. "I know. But you _are _only human...I bet lots of people would've beaten up Zarrielli Rinakel. I mean, he's..." 

"He didn't deserve _that_, though." 

"Well, no." Tass admitted. "But..." 

"There isn't a _but_," Nerra said flatly. "You're just trying to make me feel better, aren't you?" 

"Yes," Tass said. She thought he needed it...she'd never really seen him like this before... 

"Thanks," he said. 

Tass managed a smile. 

"Maybe you'd better go now." 

"You sure?" 

"Yeah." 

Tass retreated to her bedroom. She didn't do her homework. She didn't turn on the holovision either. She just thought.


	11. Sort Of A Beginning

A Long Time Ago   
_11. Sort Of A Beginning_

Two days later, Tass was sitting on her bedroom floor, reading. She'd decided not to work on the project tonight...it was going well, after all. 

Just when she was beginning to wonder if maybe she should go and get something to eat, her mother suddenly burst in without knocking. She looked slightly panicked. "Tass," she said, "do you know where your brother is?" 

"No," Tass said, looking up with concern. "I haven't seen him since...this morning, I think." 

"I told him he couldn't go out with his friends, but he's gone anyway...and he didn't take his comlink. He's been gone for hours." 

Tass slammed her book shut. "He might've just done it to spite you..." 

"I'm worried, Tass." 

"I know..." 

She followed her mother downstairs. Jek was making calls to Nerra's friends. Some of them couldn't be reached, and some of them said they didn't know where he was. A quarter of a hour passed. Tass kept expected Nerra to walk in at any moment. Certain that any second now the door would open, and she'd be so relieved and then they'd all have a meal, or something... 

Another quarter of a hour passed, and he didn't come in. 

"I'm going out to look for him," Jek finally said. He took his comlink, and kissed Lelleri on the cheek before he left. Tass hurried upstairs to look out of the window, hoping she'd be able to see her brother, even though that was near impossible...she could see nothing but windows, metal and ships. 

Several hours passed. She wasn't sure how she got through them. She knew that of course there was a sensible explanation for where Nerra had gone...he'd gone out with friends and lost track of the time, maybe gone to some party or something...but she was so worried. 

"Tass!" her mother called. "I'm contacting the security forces. Your father called. He hasn't found him yet. He's looked everywhere he can think of." 

At that, Tass decided on something. She found her own comlink (hidden under the bed) and called Dekabyn. He picked it up on the other end. 

"Dekabyn," she said desperately, before he could talk. 

"What?" he asked. He obviously knew it was her. 

"Nerra's run away." 

"He has?" Dekabyn sounded shocked. "Seriously? Where's he gone?" 

"How in the universe should I know?! I have no idea. My mum's called the security forces. My dad's gone out looking for him-" 

A door opened downstairs. Tass spun round...it was her father, but he was alone. 

"Still nowhere to be found," he said, panicking. Tass turned back to the comlink. round here. There's no way Mum will let me out of the house, she's too worried. But maybe if you came with me, she'd let us go out and look...she likes you, you see." 

There was a pause on the other end. "Alright," 

Then he hung up. Tass leaned against the wall, her heart thumping like crazy. Her brother could be anywhere. He could have been hurt... 

She raced upstairs. She swung into her room. She shoved the button on the wall. The secret compartment opened...and there was nothing inside. Absolutely nothing. 

Her first thoughts were thoughts of anger. _He took all my credits! All of them! Where in the world is he planning on going?_

And the holograph...that was missing too. That calmed her down somewhat, although she wasn't sure why. _Why'd he take that with him? I thought he hated me..._

_I suppose he changed his mind then. Unless he took it just so he could rip it up._

An insanely loud BEEEEEEP noise echoed about the house. She raced downstairs again and opened the door. It was Dekabyn. He'd clearly run all the way down. 

"Mum, Dekabyn's here," Tass yelled into the next room. "Can I go out and look for Nerra with him?" 

"No!" Lelleri yelled, almost in hysterics now. "You're not leaving this house!" 

"Hello to you too, Tass," Dekabyn said. 

"Hello Dekabyn. Mum, please..." 

"Bring Dekabyn in, and you can both stay. Or send him home. Anything." She came out of the room, Jek's hand on her shoulder. "Please, Tass!" 

Tass looked at her friend. "C'mon, Dekabyn..." She grabbed his hand and led him upstairs. When they were out of earshot she hissed, "He's taken all the money." 

"What d'ya mean?" 

"Me and him had a secret stash of credits. It was in my room. It's all gone." She decided not to mention the picture. "There was enough there to get him off the planet." 

"Have you told your parents?" 

"Not yet." Another loud BEEEEEEP sounded. "That'll be the security forces. I can tell them as well." 

Dekabyn nodded, and both of them went downstairs. On the way down, Tass suddenly stopped and turned to Dekabyn. 

"Stay the night." 

He nodded. 

He could have slept in Nerra's room, but ended up sleeping on her floor instead. 


	12. Landings

A Long Time Ago  
_12. Landing_

"The security forces have done all they can. It's been fourteen days. We've searched all over Coruscant, neighbouring planets...there isn't a trace of him..."

"But he _can't be_..."

"Your brother is dead, Tass. Accept it..."

But she could tell from her father's expression that he hadn't accepted it himself.

"He's not dead."

"Tass, please..." That was her mother, tears in her eyes.

"_He's not dead_!"

Then she ran upstairs. She buried her face in her pillow and cried for a few minutes. Then she opened the secret cupboard once more, in case there was a note left inside that she'd somehow managed to miss. There was nothing.

She found her comlink and contacted Dekabyn.

"Dek,"

"Yes?" He sounded worried.

"It's been fourteen days...they're giving up, they think he's dead."

"Oh, Tass."

"He's not dead, Dekabyn. I won't believe it. I can't..."

"I know, Tass. I don't believe it either."

"You don't?"

"I don't. So they've stopped looking altogether?"

"The security forces have. You know what they say...they say if someone goes missing on Coruscant and are gone for more than a week, they're probably dead. And my parents...they..." She couldn't finish.

Dekabyn didn't say anything. There was a long silence.

"Are you going to go look for him, Tass?" he finally asked.

"Yes." Then she clamped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't meant to say that. But she'd been thinking it...she had. Yes. She _was_ going to find her brother now. "I am. But I don't know how. My parents are watching me all the time, they won't let me out of the house in case I disappear as well...and I have no money. And..." Her heart was sinking now. "We can't search the whole galaxy, however much we'd like to. It's impossible. And we're going to need transport..."

But she got the feeling Dekabyn was smiling.

"What are you thinking...?

"I'm thinking," Dekabyn said, and she could almost see his grin, slightly taunting, "that all we need right now is Faith."

------

Tass ended up sneaking out. She left a note on the table. It said simply: _I'll be back soon. I have my comlink so you can contact me. I'll be with Dekabyn. Tass._ She considered adding _And when I get back Nerra will be with me_, but decided against it. She stuck it to the door of her bedroom, tiptoed past the closed door of the living room...her mother was crying..and escaped. She ran to Dekabyn's house faster than she'd ever run before.

"Okay...tell me what we're going to do."

"We're going to go to Faith's house, and she is going to fly the _Merlin _for us."

"But she can't...can she? Whatever made you think of that, anyway?"

"I have no idea. I've been...I was just thinking, alright? And we'll see. Come on!"

Running as quickly as they could...Tass's parents would have raised the alarm by now...they caught an air-taxi to take them to the higher levels. Dekabyn found them seats. Tass was glad to see he'd thrown some things into his bag before they'd left...another comlink, money, some food and drink, even a vibroblade. All she had was her comlink. _Good thing one of us is organized._

After the airtaxi dropped them off, they ran to Faith's apartment. She was waiting for them. Dekabyn must have called her before Tass had arrived.

"Tass, I'm really sorry about your brother -but you're both completely mad!" she said, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. "I can't fly!"

"And why not?" Dekabyn asked.

"Because of what happened last time. You _know_ all this, Tass...my parents stopped me from flying! I don't want you two to get hurt if something goes wrong. And it will. That thing can hardly lift off the _ground_, anyway, it's so old!" She was getting agitated now.

"We give you our word that we won't be too annoyed with you if we die," Dekabyn said serenely. "We'll be too dead to care."

"Stop it, Dek!" Tass snapped. She turned to Faith. "Nerra took all the money. There isn't any other way we can fly out. I know you can do this. You're our only hope. Our last hope, I suppose." Truth be told, she was thinking of other alternatives in her head even as she was speaking, and most of them were actually _more _practical, but she felt it best not to mention this.

Dekabyn said nothing. Faith's hand fell from her hair. Then she sighed.

"Alright, Tass. C'mon."

Tass and Dekabyn exchanged a smile, and they followed her into the hangar. The _Merlin_ sat in the center. Faith pressed a button and a ramp came down. The three of them climbed it in silence. Faith sat in the pilot's seat.

"Okay," she said shakily. "Before we go, I have a couple of things to say..."

"What are they?" Dekabyn said.

"I really was sorry about Nerra, Tass. I'm sorry if I didn't sound like it. You're my best friend. And Dekabyn..."

"What?"

"Actually, I can't think of anything to say to you."

She started the engines.

"Sorry that I've been abandoning you for Dekabyn so often," Tass said hurriedly. Anxiety was growing in her now. _Darn Faith for being so melodramatic._

"That's alright..."

She pushed some buttons. They were starting to rise. Tass suddenly remembered something. _The oldest ship in the galaxy, pretty much..._

_Argh if Faith can't do this we're going to die we're all going to die we're going to DIE..._

The ship rose into the air. One hurdle down. Faith was sweating.

"I mustn't get too anxious! That's what makes...things happen. Tass, say something to calm me down!"

Tass's mind switched itself off. "What?"

"Anything will do!"

The engines grew louder. Even Dekabyn looked a little worried now.

"Um...may the Force be with you, Faith."

Dekabyn turned to look at her. Faith nearly did, but then she stopped, concentrating purely on the controls. There were a few awful seconds of shaking, then...

...then they were out of the hangar.

Tass cheered, and didn't even realise she was doing it until Dekabyn joined in. Faith looked only slightly relieved.

"We're not even off Coruscant yet! I still have to navigate the airways without killing anyone. Anyway, Tass...where are we going?"

There was a very pregnant pause.

"I don't know," Tass finally admitted. "I was just going to..."

"You don't _know_?!" Faith howled.

"I don't know yet. I was going to wait until we got off Coruscant, and then...see what happened."

"Oh, good grief!"

Dekabyn suddenly put his hand on Faith's shoulder. "Let's just follow Tass," he said. "It's her brother we're looking for, after all."

_Nerra!_ Tass felt a flash of shame. In the heat of the moment she'd almost forgotten about him, impossible as that sounded.

Faith started to drive into one of the airways, still rather nervous.

"I'm tell you when I think of the planet we're going to," Tass said. "Okay?"

"Okay," Faith said.

They continued on.

-----

"Tass!" Dekabyn was shaking her. "Tass!"

She opened her eyes, and realised with some embarrassment that she'd fallen asleep.

On Dekabyn's shoulder.

"Damn!" She sat up. "Where are we?"

"Well, we're off Coruscant," Faith said. "I'm not sure how I managed that."

"And now it'd be helpful to know where we're going."

"Tatooine."

_I just said that. I just said that..._

"I have a bad feeling about this," Faith muttered, but she took the controls anyway.

"Your parents phoned, by the way," Dekabyn told her. "They're angry. Very angry. They can't believe you were so selfish." Tass looked at him. "Their words, not mine."

"What did you say to them?"

"I said I'd pass their message onto you. And now I have. Are you going to phone them back?"

"Better leave it for later."

"Good idea."

"It's quite a long way to Tatooine, you know," Faith said. "You'd be better off going to sleep again. I wish _I _could," she added.

"Yeah well, you know what they say about low-levelers owning pretty ships like this," Dekabyn said. "You know what they say about them even being taught to fly."

Tass realised that she, in fact, did not know. "Maybe if you're really tired, I could have a go."

"You shouldn't switch pilots in the airways," Faith murmured. "It's against some rule or other."

"And it's against the rule for people under eighteen to drive in a airway, too," Dekabyn said dryly.

They continued on. The world started to disappear and be replaced by stars.

-----

Finally, Tatooine came into view. Tass's parents had phoned again...twice...and both times Tass had had to tell them that she was fine.

"Please, Tass," her mother had begged. "I understand why you're doing this, but we want you safe with us..."

"I promise I'll be okay," Tass had said.

Then she had just hung up as quickly as possible. She didn't much like the idea of her parents sitting at home and worrying...again.

"Everyone, hold onto something!" Faith yelled. "We're going to land."

Tass considered holding onto Dekabyn, but she gripped the sides of her seat instead. "Er...they say landing is always the hardest...maybe I could help."

At that very moment, the comlink rang again. "Answer it," Dekabyn said. "They'll panic if you don't."

Tass answered it. Faith went back to the business of landing the ship.

"Don't land _on _anything, alright?" Dekabyn said. "I can't afford a lawsuit."

"QUIT TALKING ABOUT ALL THE THINGS YOU CAN'T AFFORD!" Faith yelled, starting to panic now. "I don't talk about all the things I _can_, so you should show the same courtesy!"

"You don't _understand_, you spoiled, selfish, useless-"

"Tass, what's going on-" Lelleri said over the comlink. But then, as the ship landed with a _crunch_, the comlink flew from Tass's hands and hit the ground. She picked it up, and it appeared to have broken.

She swore. Dekabyn looked rather surprised.

"Who would've thought it," he said, gesturing to Faith. "You control your Force powers by getting angry and yelling at innocent people."

"Shut up, Dekabyn. I'm not _useless_, see? I just proved it," Faith said. "I think I broke the ship, though."

"Possibly," Dekabyn said. "Well, you'll be blamed for it, I suppose. Let's go."


	13. The Hole

A Long Time Ago  
_13. The Hole_

Weirdly enough, Tass didn't notice that she was very hot, or even that she was very thirsty, until almost half an hour had passed. Her brother had completely taken over her thoughts now. She was incredibly worried. Maybe he wasn't here. Maybe this had been a stupid idea. Maybe she'd _never actually see him again_. This was an impossible thought for her to handle. She just couldn't accept it.

"Tass, I'm _sweaty_," she heard Faith, who was lagging behind, complain.

"What do you expect her to do about it?" Dekabyn said testily. He'd taken his shirt off. Tass didn't want to look at him with his shirt off, because who knew what he'd think about her looking at him with his shirt off and enjoying the sight, but somehow she couldn't help herself.

"I want to go back and sit in the ship," Faith said.

"Go on, then," Dekabyn said. "Don't get lost."

"Couldn't you just stay with us, Faith?" Tass said quietly. "We might need you."

Faith didn't actually seem to have much intention of turning back. She just looked completely exhausted and terrified, although Tass was sure she wasn't nearly as exhausted or terrified as she seemed. Myabe she just wanted attention. Or something.

She was beginning to notice the heat now, though.

"I hate it here," Faith moaned under her breath. "You'd have to be mad to live here, or even _come _here..."

Dekabyn grabbed her by the shoulders. "Listen, you idiot," he hissed. "Stop saying things so _loudly_. Some of the people around here won't hestiate to hurt you just because you've got a pretty face, all right?"

Tass wasn't listening to them anymore. She wasn't sure what she was trying to listen to.

She was standing on the same ground that people like Luke and Anakin Skywalker had walked on...surely she could think of something, but then again she wasn't a Jedi, and presumably she didn't really have much of a destiny...

"Just keep walking, okay, Faith?" Dekabyn said. "It's not that hard, unless you make things difficult, which you seem determined to."

"Stop _picking _on me!" Faith said, in a desperate whiny voice. Tass suddenly started walking quickly away from her.

"Where are you going, Tass?" Dekabyn yelled urgently after her.

"I'm trying to get an idea!" she yelled back, and she kept walking, walking, walking...the others ran to keep up with her...and then she found it. Or thought she did.

It was an arena of sorts. She could see the stands...they'd fallen into disrepair, were slowly turning to dust. No-one had been in here for ages...

"Oh no, not more sand!" she heard Faith moan from behind her. Faith really was becoming annoying now, she thought. She looked up, and realised what the arena was for...she could just make out the word _Podracers_, scratched into a sign. Podracing. She wondered what it must have been like, all those hundreds of years ago...she wished she belonged to that time, instead, things would have been easier...

She realised she wasn't worrying about Nerra anymore, and then she realised why.

She could _hear _him.

"HELP! _Anyone! _Just help!"

Dekabyn stared around in amazment. "That's..."

"_Nerra_!" Tass yelled, and she started running into the sand, jumping over rocks, causing a minor dust storm as she tried to locate the voice...

...and then she nearly fell down a hole.

She dropped to her knees, Dekabyn and Faith next to her, and looked downwards. There was a gaping hole in the ground, it went so far down she could barely see the bottom...but she _could _see it, and Nerra was down there.

"...Tass?" came the voice from the hole, and she noticed how dizzy and frightened and tired her brother sounded. "_Tass_?"

"Nerra, it's me!" Tass yelled, almost overcome with relief. "Are you alright?"

"Not really," he answered.

"We'll get you out of there, okay? Nerra!"

But he'd gone quiet.

"He must have fainted," Faith said. It was the first sensible thing she'd said all day.

"We'd better get help," Dekabyn said, and he got up right then and there and begun to run. Faith ran after him.

"I'll stay here..." Tass yelled after them, but only Dekabyn seemed to hear her. He nodded and then was gone.

Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into a quarter of a hour. Tass really did think she was going to be sick when she heard Nerra's voice again.

"Tass?"

"Yes, Nerra?" she called.

"It's really you..." He sounded amazed. "I thought I was dreaming...Tass..."

"It's okay," she answered. "It's okay. How long have you been down there...?"

"I don't know," he answered giddily. "I had some water...I brought it with me...and some food, but most of it's gone, and I think I broke my ankle, and _stars _I'm so glad you're here, Tass..."

Suddenly, she heard Dekabyn's voice. "Tass!" he was yelling. "Tass!"

"Yeah?" she yelled back. "Are you alright?" She was, once again, overcome with relief. There was another yell then, it was Faith.

"We found someone to help..."  
Three people were running towards her now: Dekabyn, Faith, and a man who she'd never seen before in her life.

"Who's this?"

The man said nothing, despite the fact Tass was smiling in relief.

"Some guy we found." Dekabyn said thoughtfully.

"I have some rope." the man said. Tass couldn't place his accent. He produced a whole length of rope from his pocket, handed it to her, and began to walk away.

"Hey, wait a minute," Dekabyn called after him. The man stopped. He looked at Dekabyn thoughtfully, but Tass had no time to ponder this. "Nerra?" she yelled.

"Yeah?"

"Grab onto the rope, okay? Can you do that?" She flung the rope down.

"I think so."

"Good."

Dekabyn and Faith came to help her pull the rope, but the man just stood there, off to one side.

"Still alright, Nerra?"

"Yeah..."

They were nearly there...

"Okay, Nerra, we've almost..."

There was a _snap_, and it took Tass almost a second to realise that the rope had broken. But he that time something had happened...the air had shifted, she had felt something...oh no, no, he couldn't fall back down there, he might get hurt even worse...no, he couldn't...

But he was coming out of the hole now. _Flying _out of the hole. Being lifted out of the hole...Tass turned around, and Faith was doing it, her eyes wide open, concentrating with all her might...

Nerra landed safely on the ground next to Tass. For a long while there was silence, complete silence, as everyone tried to work out exactly what had happened...then Tass felt herself being crushed in a hug.

"Thank you, Tass, thank you so much..." Nerra was saying. She hugged him back. "It's okay, I'm glad you're alright..."

Faith burst into hysterical tears.

"What're you...doing that for?" Nerra asked, suddenly giddy as where he was seemed to actually hit him. "You just saved me..."

"I _know_!" Faith sniffed. She ran her hand over her face. "That was just...I don't _want _it."

Dekabyn viewed all this with a sort of bemused coolness.

"Faith, please be quiet. You did something good, okay? You've got nothing to be crying about." This, predictably, didn't help her. Nerra shook Dekabyn's hand awkwardly, obviously not quite sure what to say to him. The man who Dekabyn and Faith had found remained rooted to the spot as no-one approached him, and Tass suddenly realised...he seemed familiar.

Clearly he seemed familiar to Dekabyn as well, because he suddenly said "Hey, you, I want to talk to you..."

The man looked at him, seemily unsure where to go or what to do. They looked at each other, and then Dekabyn said to him "You have nowhere to go, do you?"

"No." the man said.

Dekabyn turned to the others. "Tass, Faith, Nerra, if you don't mind...the ship can sit five people, I think he should come with us."

Tass nodded her agreement...she didn't know what was going on, but she had her brother back and her friends safe and that was all that mattered. Faith looked slightly more unhappy.

"He's a bit creepy," she said.

"But I came to help you," the man suddenly spoke up.

Faith nodded. "Well..." he said, and then started crying again.

"It was you who...did that, I take it." the man said, looking at her strangly.

"Yeah..."

"Force powers."

"Yeah."

They returned to the ship. Tass personally felt happier and more relieved than she'd ever felt in her life, but she knew the others weren't feeling the same way. Dekabyn lent her his comlink, and she phoned her parents...she got as far as "I found him," and then they started crying. She began to feel tired...exactly what they'd done was starting to catch up with her now. Faith had stopped her complaining, but was still sniffing loudly as she took the controls of the ship. Dekabyn said nothing to the man who was now sitting behind him, and the man said nothing to him either.

"Do you mind if I go to sleep, Tass?" Nerra said in a whisper. His voice was going now; after all, he'd spent many days yelling for help.

"Of course I don't mind," she whispered back.

The flight home was pretty much uneventful. Tass slept too. Faith didn't...in fact, she no longer seemed so afraid of flying, although she was certainly afraid of something else, Tass thought.

Almost as soon as they landed, the minor mystery got solved.


	14. Just Another Ending

A Long Time Ago   
_14. Just Another Ending_

They landed in a small landing area not far from Tass's home. The strange man was the first to climb out, with only a brief nod to them all and a quiet "_Thank you_," and Tass knew something was about to happen. It was. Dekabyn jumped up like a shot and put a hand on his arm. 

Then he said, "Your last name...it's Resh, isn't it?" 

Faith's jaw dropped, Nerra blinked tiredly, and Tass suddenly felt very afraid for her best friend. She hadn't been expecting this, not this exactly...but something had clearly been going on. 

"Yeah," the man said. 

Dekabyn took a deep breath. "Hello. Guess who I am." 

There was a long silence. A very long silence. 

"You're Jode's kid, aren't you?" the man said flatly and despairingly. 

"Yeah, that's right..._Jode's kid_. My name is Dekabyn." 

Another silence. 

"Dekabyn." 

"That's right." 

"Dek," he choked. "Named after the dictator on Tornama, I take it?" 

Dekabyn's eyes flashed, and Tass felt very weary indeed. 

"Go," he said. 

"What?" 

"GO!" 

He went. 

The air seemed to fizz. 

"That wasn't very nice." Faith said. 

Dekabyn ignored her, as was probably the best thing at the moment. "C'mon, Tass." 

They reached home. Tass remembered the comlink. _For all I know, they're ready to kill me themselves..._

Dekabyn and Faith at her side, she unlocked the door. 

"TASS!"   
"NERRA!" 

Tass found herself practically being crushed in a hug. She hugged back. Her mother let go of her. 

"You found him. You found him. Oh, Tass..." 

And then she was crushed again. When she was finally let go of, she found herself hugging Dekabyn. 

"Geroff..." 

She let go and noticed Dekabyn was watching something. On the level below them, looking up, was Resh. 

"Suppose I'd better go," Dekabyn muttered. 

She held him back. "What're you going to do?" 

"Bring him back to my house, I suppose..." 

He started to walk away. 

"Dekabyn," Lelleri called after him. "You helped protect both my children. Thank you." 

"You're welcome," he called back, and kept on walking. 

Tass was pulled back into her family. Faith mostly just stood to one side, an expression of well, _nervousness_ on her face. 

"Thank you, Faith," Tass said to her, and she meant it, meant it very much indeed. 

The next day, she woke up and realised her adventure was over. She felt...like she should have _enjoyed _it more, paid more attention, or something. But thinking she might lose her brother...it hadn't been in the least bit fun. 

Her comlink beeped, and she knew right away that it would be Faith. 

"Hello," Faith said, her voice small and nervous. 

"Hi, Faith." 

"My parents...when I came in, they were hysterical," she said. "They'd called everyone on Coruscant...they were terrified...they didn't think of calling _your _parents..." 

"Faith, I have to ask, did you..." 

"I never told them all of what happened," She gave a little moan, but maybe it was just for dramatic effect- who knew? "They don't know. I don't know what to _do_. My mum was crying all through the night, she was so glad I wasn't dead..." 

"Faith, you're their _daughter_. They won't disown you or anything, just because you happen to have an ancient power," She sounded silly, she knew it, and probably slightly insensitive, but...it would probably work. "Tell them." 

"Okay," Faith sniffed loudly. "I'll see you in school tomorrow." 

"Faith, did you _mean _that 'okay', or are you-" 

But she hung up. 

Tass dropped the comlink and sighed to herself. She was such a...well, it didn't matter. Faith would learn. 

She dialed Dekabyn's number, but no-one answered. She tried not to be too worried- it had happened before. She figured she'd work on her history project. It needed to be handed in tomorrow. 

So the next day, she handed it in. 

"I hope it's alright," she said to Regimesh. 

The teacher flicked through the first few pages. "Oh, I think it will be," he said. "I've heard what you got up to, the other day, when you should have been working. There is no way I'm going to tell you not to do it again." 

"Oh-" 

He gave her one of those bizarre smiles, and then left, the project in hand. However, before he reached the door he stopped and said, "You have quite a lot of potential, Tass. But I feel I should tell you- you are young. And you have your whole life ahead of you." 

Before she could say anything in reply, he had gone. 

She went outside to talk to Dekabyn. 

"What'd he say?" he asked her. 

"Suprisingly nice things," she answered. "It was weird." 

He made a neutral sound. 

"Dek, what happened with..." 

"My _father_?" He gave a snort. "Nothing much. He nearly gave my mum a heart attack when he showed up. She's not letting him stay with us. She's just not interested. And I'm not really, either." 

Tass thought about this. "But...well...don't you think he deserves a chance?" 

"Probably. But I'm not going to give it to him." 

Tass knew an arguement belonged there, but she didn't want to quarrel with him. She just looked out over the planet, and so did Dekabyn. 

"Guess," he said suddenly "what his first name is." 

Tass shook her head. 

"Palpatine." 

Tass burst out laughing. 

"Yep," Dekabyn said thoughtfully, but with a smile. 

"Must run in the family, I suppose." 

"Naming yourselves after pure evil?" 

"Of course. He doesn't like it any more than I do, though. Most people just call him by his first name, apparently." 

"Do you?" 

"Not really." 

More silence, and then Tass voiced her thoughts. "It's weird that he was just _there_. On Tatooine." 

"Well, it's weird that Nerra was on Tatooine, too, and it's weird that you knew," Dekabyn said. "And it's weird that that's where the Skywalkers came from, that tiny little dustball planet. It's a weird _place_." 

Tass nodded in agreement. 

"Y'know, people always reckon the two suns mean something. Love or hate, life or death, destiny or free-will, living and unifying, light and dark...y'know?" 

Tass did know. She would think about this for many years to come, in fact. 

"C'mon, let's go," she said. "Lessons in a minute." 

"Okay," he said, and as they left he said. "You know that the park opens soon, right? We...should go." 

"Yeah," she said, surprised. "Yeah...of course we should." 

"Just us two?" 

"Well, maybe Faith and Nerra should come..." 

"Okay. I don't mind." 

So they went. 

It was nothing like she'd expected. It was better. There were people everywhere. There was yelling. Lots of it. And the sun was shining, and the skyscapers were silver... 

"Whoa. Tass, calm down a little. You're grinning like a lunatic." 

"I know," She turned to Dekabyn. "Why not? Nerra's not dead, we're not dead, I finished my project, there's no Empire, there's no Sith Lords, the people who died to save us are happy...and there's a park! A _park_! Come _on_, Dek!" 

"Okay, okay! Optimism overload." But he was grinning. A bit. 

"Hey, look," Faith said. "Holocams." 

Sure enough, people from various media sources had gathered and were taking pictures. Faith grinned and ran out, obviously hoping someone would take a picture of her. 

"I guess this_ is _quite a momentous occasion." Dekabyn said, and sat down on the grass. Tass sat down too. They sat in shared silence for a minute, just listening. 

"What did you mean, Tass, 'the people who died to save us are happy'?" 

"Oh..." She blushed a little, she had to start learning not to go mad. "It's just...you know, a lot of the things they did, they did for the galaxy. And...me and you and Faith and my family and the new Jedi and these people here and everyone...we are the galaxy. And we're happy. Well..." She paused. "Maybe not _everyone_ is. Actually, I expect quite a few people aren't, but..." She paused again, unable to explain it. "It's just...you know." 

"I don't," Dekabyn said. "But never mind. Where's Nerra?" 

Tass gave a start, she didn't know. She looked around. There he was, on the other side of the park. 

"C'mon, let's get some exercise." 

She took Dekabyn's hand and pulled him to his feet. Faith, who had had her picture taken several times already, came towards them. They half-ran, half-walked towards where Nerra was. The sun went behind a cloud and then came out the other side. 

Tass heard words in her head: _But you are young. And you have your whole life ahead of you..._

She stopped in front of her brother, who was grinning. She hadn't seen him do that in a while. 

"Look," he said. 

Tass looked to where he was pointing. It was a flower. 

The first to bloom in Coruscant soil for over a thousand years. 

She knelt down and touched the silver petals. 

THE END 


End file.
